


Ere the world falls dead

by wearethewitches



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural
Genre: Dimension Travel, F/F, F/M, Family, Female Harry Potter, Gabriel (Supernatural) is Loki, Gen, Genderfluid Gabriel (Supernatural), Indian Harry Potter, M/M, Nephilim, Non-Human Harry Potter, Veil of Death (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-14 23:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16922328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: "The sun grows dark,The earth sinks into the sea,The bright starsFrom heaven vanish;" - The Prose Edda, CH16: Ragnarok-or, Hari Potter is the pagan-nephilim, witch-child of Gabriel and Loki and James.





	1. Chapter 1

It takes them a while to notice. It takes a while for the _witches_ to notice, at least.

“Freak,” Petunia whispers when she sees her niece for the first time after she comes back from Hogwarts for the summer. Hari Potter is still short as she ever is; her hair is still raven-black and her eyes _avada kedavra-_ green; shadows still flicker around her that turn into wild beasts in the corner of people’s eyes.

Hari hasn’t aged a day since she was eight. It just takes Petunia ten months of absence to see it.

When she goes to the Burrow with Ron, Molly Weasley takes one look at her and thinks _she’s so small._ No small amount of food is given to her that summer and Hari wisely takes it all, her upbringing with the Dursley’s having taught her the importance of a full belly.

Even as she rubs at her scar – that is slowly turning silver to purple over the years from her ministrations, that only healed when Hari looked at herself in a dream and screamed at the sight of a monster, pushing it away and crushing it – and fidgets on her many-times-repaired seat at Molly Weasley’s table – that is getting in the way somehow, that is making her feel like she’s sitting on a limb folded all wrong – Hari eats and takes what she is given.

Like any human being that is given sustenance, the taught skin around her ribs becomes looser, her wan complexion turning a more burnished bronze-brown from good food and sunlight. But she doesn’t shoot upwards like a child her age – eleven, then twelve – should and doesn’t look any older or more mature as the weeks pass. Molly Weasley worries only when she forgets what little Hari’s smile looks like and when she remembers, pushes away that all that nonsense.

 _She’ll grow,_ Molly assures herself.

At night, Hari drifts away. She feels restless and it never lasts long. Where sleep can sometimes be a reprieve in a household like the Dursley’s, a state where she can drift off and explore the furthest reaches of the world like she’s really there, in the Burrow she’s happy.

On the camp-bed on Ron’s bedroom floor, the wind making the top-most room creak and sway ever so gently, Hari instead reads her books. It doesn’t matter that the moonlight isn’t enough – she’s always seen well in the dark – or that she knows every page of every book she owns, like the image is imprinted in her head.

 _Freak!_ The was what Aunt Petunia called her when she told her, her painted-pink lips curling into a disgusted expression, eyes hateful and _afraid._

Hedwig coos at her softly in the dark, sometimes, asking, _hatchling, what can I do? My wings are yours, hatchling, my lovely hatchling._ Hari pets her and speaks back, telling her not to worry and that she’s not a hatchling. It doesn’t stop Hedwig from calling her _hatchling, hatchling_ ever or at all – not even once.

At Hogwarts, back for her second year, Professor McGonagall squints at her and brusquely orders a check-up with Madam Pomfrey. It confuses Hari as much as it confuses Ron, who shrugs and says, “Maybe you’re ill and we can’t see it. She’s a cat, sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Hari agrees, even though she doesn’t feel ill – she’s never been ill, except for when touching Quirrell knocked her out, except for when she made his eyes burn out of their sockets and it left her feeling drained of all energy and queasy.

Madam Pomfrey frowns at her, just like Professor McGonagall does. The Hospital Wing is empty, other than the three of them – Ron has been sent out. The mediwitch swishes her wand over her again and again, shaking her head and drawing Professor McGonagall away across the room. Their hands intertwine and Hari wonders why they moved when they’re being loud enough for her to hear.

“She’s got nothing wrong with her, Minnie,” Madam Pomfrey says, but her voice is still worried. “I see what you mean, however. She’s the same as when I last saw her, down to the last hair. Well, except the scar.”

“Except the scar,” Professor McGonagall repeats. “Curse scars never heal. Why did it heal?”

“Removing the taint of a curse scar is often the result of a blessing – magical creatures or beings from other worlds are the only ones able to remove the darkness…but that’s not why you’re here. She’s the same. The _exact same._ ”

Hari wonders what she means and then, her professor and the mediwitch tell her.

* * *

To the rest of the world, Hari Potter is a normal teenage girl – if an extremely short one. She’s quiet, but brave and nosy to boot, always getting in trouble and not usually getting out of it very well. She earns detention from Snape once a month – usually over a snide comment from the man over her height, her choice of friends or simple mistakes made in class and the following sassy comeback – and studies with Ron and Hermione at their table in the library, because even if she doesn’t forget a single thing, essays aren’t something she can just write up in an hour.

Hari is social though, otherwise. She lets Parvati and Lavender braid her hair on the weekends and paint pink and purple butterflies on her face when she’s feeling special – Fred and George learn how to charm them, just so she and her dormmates can walk around school with them fluttering beside their eyes. Outside of quidditch practice, she eats with her teammates and chats with them and their friends about school and gossip – learning the newest updates about Oliver Wood and Percy Weasley’s love-hate relationship and getting told who covered their dorm with OWL studies and quidditch strategies that week is her equivalent to prime-time television.

And once a week, she meets Professor McGonagall for tea.

They eat ginger newts and talk about schoolwork in her office, the teacher telling her student about James Potter’s apprenticeship under her for his transfiguration mastery and other, select incidents involving him and his yet-to-be-named friends. Once, Hari asks her if she can write to them; in turn, Professor McGonagall asks her to be wait, so the teacher can ask them herself if that would be appropriate.

At the end of every teatime, Professor McGonagall leans closer across the desk, raises her wand and adjusts the transfigurations on her face. A delicate process, one made harder by how Professor McGonagall guesses just how Hari might age otherwise.

“We must not move too quickly, nor too slowly,” Professor McGonagall says in a lecturing voice. “For either one will draw attention; but not as much attention as not doing it entirely.”

It makes something in Hari curl up at her words, even as she registers the truth in them. She still feels so young, even though she knows she is older, now. Her face reflects that. _I’m a real freak because of this,_ she thinks often, _because I’m not aging. Not because I have magic or because I have a scar on my forehead. I’m a freak because I’m not human._

* * *

Madam Pomfrey shows her a mirror like the Mirror of Erised after winter break, when Hari’s dormmate Sally-Anne Perks hasn’t come back for the new term because of the Chamber of Secrets and the Ministry is too worried about Slytherin’s monster to care about a special requisition.

The mirror shows her a strange person who looks like Hari, but is far more strange and bewildering. A tail curls around the not-Hari’s leg, long and winding; a raven’s beak protrudes from her face like a botched transfiguration and her hair is made up of raven-feathers; her whole body is both human and _not_ , with two extra heads, one a snowy owl like Hedwig with downy grey feathers and another a dog with bright green eyes and reddish fur; and she is tall, this not-Hari, taller than Hogwarts, taller than the Earth and nearly as wide, but at the same time compact and as small as Hari is.

 _What can and could be, what I am,_ she thinks as she discovers she has wings and unlocks something inside her that fills her mind with knowledge. _If I hadn’t a body to live in, this would truly be me._

Hari doesn’t understand it’s truly her until she looks at where the monster used to live and sees a scar that is simultaneously etched onto her forehead and marring the core of her very being.

Madam Pomfrey has to return the mirror eventually, asking her what she saw. Hari curls up in her lap and tries not to imagine that the hand combing through her hair is instead grooming feathers. Later, when Madam Pomfrey allows her to sleep on the sofa in her private quarters – quarters she shares with Professor McGonagall, her _wife_ – Hari wakes up in the middle of the night and finds her transfiguration teacher watching over her in cat-form.

“Can I show you something?” she asks in a hush and then, she unfurls those wings she saw in the mirror and manipulating _Grace,_ shows Professor McGonagall part of them that _is_ safe.

It _isn’t_ safe to show humans, Hari knows, like how she knows the sky is blue and like how she knows that her father wasn’t all he seemed. All a human can see of her wings are imprints – shadows on a wall. But Professor McGonagall is a cat right now and she can see more. She sees the molten golds and greens, the yellow dandelions that grow in the spaces between feathers and above them, in the dark January sky, lightning crackles suddenly and the clouds storm.

Hari’s eyes glow gold.

* * *

She’s always been able to speak to animals, but snakes are different – when she speaks to snakes, she speaks their tongue to them rather than having them seemingly understand every word she says in English. The incident with the duelling club proved that, not even mentioning the stigma held against it in the Wizarding World. Snakes _like_ her and she likes them – Hari can’t help if the rest of the world doesn’t share that opinion.

Salazar Slytherin’s basilisk though is clearly mad. Its intelligence is worn down and while Tom Riddle frowns at Hari’s attempt to talk to it, it still only follows his commands. Magic bound it to a bloodline and solitude has killed its sense of self. If it had a soul once, like so many magical animals do, it has long mutated into something lesser.

“It hurts,” Hari says as she moves away from the fallen monster, holding her arm – Grace bubbling and burning it away, so as to preserve her tiny, human body – and crawling over to Ron’s baby sister. There’s the diary by Ginny’s body and Hari knows her first true regret, the regret she will never forget as long as she lives, is that she never destroyed the soul shard inside of it earlier.

Though, to be quite fair on herself, Hari wasn’t aware she was one of the nephilim then and therefore didn’t understand what she was really seeing the first time she saw it in Lucius Malfoy’s pocket in _Flourish and Blotts_.

“Basilisk venom. Deadly. Fatal. You’re going to _die_ , little girl,” Tom Riddle sneers, as much a teenage boy as he is a future Dark Lord. Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix who had delivered Hari the Sorting Hat and Gryffindor’s sword, swoops down and croons, head tilting as he brushes against Hari’s face. “Dead. Look, even Dumbledore’s bird knows it. Do you see what he’s doing, Potter? He’s _crying_.”

Hari ignores him and she ignores Fawkes, too. The basilisk fang is in her hand and then, it is in the diary, secreting venom and destroying the shard that is sapping Ginny’s soul. Hari decides she hates this dark soul magic, even as Fawkes’ tears drop onto Ginny’s filthy robes and the spirit of Tom Riddle screams, disappearing.

Fawkes trills. _Heal with me, fledgling. You are a creature most powerful. Do as you will with my gift, but it must be now._

Ginny will awaken any moment, Hari knows. She lets go of the fang and the diary, hands splattered with blood, dirt and ink. Her hands rest on Ginny, one on her head and the other to her chest, feeling the magic of Fawkes’ tear. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, but magic is all about intent, isn’t it? If you tear away the words and the wand-waving – controlling her Grace is like controlling another limb.

Fawkes’ tear is meant for healing. It knows what to do. Hari knows it does, feeling the true, powerful _light_ of it, meant for healing, shed in honesty. _All I have to do is get it there,_ Hari thinks, seeing Ginny’s soul and seeing the darkness, how it has been biting and gnawing at her youth and innocence and _damaging_ her.

The work causes Ginny to fall into a different kind of slumber when she is on the precipice of waking. The tear soothes her soul and while it is not enough for a full healing, the clawing and _trauma_ is gone. Hari doesn’t know what that means for her mind – if she will remember what happened and won’t cry at it, or if the hurt will just happen again as firecracker-Ginny devolves into a scared and weepy child – but Hari simply hopes it is better.

 _Fledgling,_ Fawkes sighs. If he were a human, Hari imagines he would be shaking his head. _Come, now. Let us depart. I will show you how to use your wings, fledgling._

“Let’s go,” Hari agrees and if Ron startles at her sudden appearance, he swiftly forgets her atypical entrance at the sight of Ginny in her arms. Professor Lockhart is too far gone from the botched _obliviate_ to realise anything is off at all.

Fawkes is the one to take them to the surface, into the waiting arms of Madam Pomfrey.

Headmaster Dumbledore peers curiously at Hari over half-moon glasses after, when she leaves his office with a deliberate, familiar swagger to her step. Lucius Malfoy just glares – for Dobby is a _free elf_ now and Hari smiles as he gets his just-desserts _._

* * *

Flying becomes one of the most useful things she’s ever learned, that summer. Hari is small and Ripper knew her before her nephilic awakening – Aunt Marge therefore despises how he likes her, nowadays. The week she stays with the Dursley’s is terrible and by the end, Hari is surprised she hasn’t broken the Statue of Secrecy or used her Grace for nefarious reasons, like forging Uncle Vernon’s signature for her Hogsmeade permission slip.

Except-

_Except-_

“This Potter,” Aunt Marge started, tipsy from brandy and leaning back in the creaking dining chair, “you never told me what he did.”

Hari slows, ears pin-pricked. She looks to Uncle Vernon, who shares a glance with Aunt Petunia as Hari remembers a conversation at lunch just four days earlier. _If there’s something wrong with the bitch, there’s something wrong with the pup._ Not yet finished his fourth slice of pie, Dudley looks up to gape at his parents and Hari can tell something is going to tip the balance.

 _Seven days of this,_ Hari thinks, hand curling in the flowery skirt Aunt Petunia had forced her into, blouse tucked in tightly. The only thing Aunt Petunia likes about the way she looks nowadays is how she braids back her hair like how Parvati showed her.

“He- didn’t work,” Uncle Vernon says, with half a glance at Hari. “That I can remember, at least.”

“Policeman,” Hari says under her breath. She can see it in her minds eye – Lily Evans entering the living room of their small cottage, going on about how terrible the meeting with Petunia was, how she looked at Lily in disbelief when she said that James was in the wizarding police-force, before Dumbledore told them to go into hiding.

Marge looks at her sharply, letting out a bark of laughter. “Ha! As if some Paki drunkard could become a _policeman_. Tosh! Why, I bet he was a no-account, good-for-nothing lazy scrounger who-”

Hari can’t help it. “He was not!” she yells, eyes ablaze and golden. “My father was not any of those things!”

“More brandy!” Uncle Vernon exclaims loudly, but it’s too little, too late. Even as he tries to send her to her room, Marge is standing to give a tirade of her own.

But the house is starting to shake. The lights are flickering and Aunt Petunia’s coffee is bubbling in its mug. Hari has never felt so angry before. She barely holds back her Grace – her magic is another matter. It almost seems to cackle and Marge, who had raised a finger in reprimand, is silent, the word _insolent_ barely halfway out her mouth.

The swelling begins and Hari flies to her room in an instance, scrambling to gather her belongings. _No more,_ she thinks, Grace packing her things within moments. Hedwig is absent from her perch and Hari wants to _howl_ , to rage and scream, but fear has replaced her anger.

 _I did magic in front of Uncle Vernon_ , she thinks, panicking. _I cast magic on a muggle._

Her wand is tucked in her trunk with the rest of her belongings, untouched since she changed into muggle clothes on the Hogwarts Express. Hari hadn’t wanted to risk practicing wand movements in Number Four, not if the chance of being caught was so high.

_I cursed Marge!_

Below, Ripper is barking and her uncle is yelling. It’ll be a matter of minutes before he comes upstairs to demand she fix it. But Hari doesn’t know how – Marge is a matter of the Ministry, now, as is Harry. Accidental magic can’t be used an excuse, not someone her age. Then, there is the matter of the wards, which Hari doesn’t understand – but if these protections come from the Dursley’s, Hari doesn’t think she wants them.

Flying to the nearby park with her trunk and Hedwig’s empty cage – using her Grace to clean and shrink it down, packing it away with her things – Hari sits down and almost misses the soul hiding in the playground. Her eyes aren’t yellow anymore, but Hari wills them to be as she reaches out with her Grace, wondering if the magical animal is awake – the Ford Anglia was like this, but actually, actually _Scabbers_ is like this, so special and magical, who has lived so long he’s developing a conscience.

A dog exits the space the soul is hiding. Hari stares, her Grace reaching out and touching the soul in a way she has never touched Scabbers – but it a _wizard’s_ soul, one familiar to her, not an animal. _Animagus,_ she thinks in surprise, _like Professor McGonagall_. The dog-form itself is familiar, but there’s something wrong. The soul is withered, the dog is mangy-

Hari recognises him.

“Padfoot?”

* * *

Fawkes comes when she calls, even if it means appearing in the darkest household Hari has ever had the chance to step inside. The phoenix clearly doesn’t like it, but agrees to shed another tear for Hari, so she can heal the damage done to her Uncle Padfoot.

“I don’t understand…” he says, staring at her, almost delirious. A house-elf is watching them from the shadow of the doorway. “You’re Hari, but you’re not.”

“I’m me,” Hari says, before rendering him unconscious with little more than a tap to the head. Fawkes gives her a tear and she soothes the soul of her uncle.

Sirius Black, a murderer according to the news…Hari’s uncle and godfather, according to her memories. He stinks, his physical health is dreadful and his soul is hollow and weak. Barely anything more than his base self remains, plus the vast majority of his recollections – but something else has been done and Hari finds herself scared and hating dark soul magic. She can’t reverse the effects, but she can do a little to negate the further deterioration and soothe the mad edges _._

After he slumbers, she looks at the house-elf. “Come here,” she requests. The being stays where he is for a few long moments before shuffling forwards.

“I is Kreacher,” he says, scowling. “You is a mongrel.”

The word is new. Hari would have been more ashen, had it been _freak._ Still, she is shocked speechless momentarily, unable to make her mouth move. Luckily, Kreacher doesn’t simply wander off, staying put.

“…I’m Hari,” Hari eventually introduces herself, knowing that Dobby had seen her for what she truly was before she Awoke. She might as be honest. “I’m a nephil – also part Pagan, more Pagan than you’d think. My father is James and Gabriel and Loki, three beings in one. James was the wizard-part. My mother was a plain old witch, though.”

“Mongrel,” Kreacher spits, but there’s a strange look in his eyes, “Powerful nephily-Pagan, mongrel-witch. You bring Master home.”

“I did.”

“You uses magic to help him, strange magic-” Kreacher disappears with a small _pop_ and Hari can feel him upstairs, her eyes drifting upwards. She almost throws up upon recognising a sliver of that dark, damaged soul that possessed Ginny last year. Kreacher takes it in his grasp and brings it to her.

The locket sways like a hypnotist’s watch in front of her face, dark and _small._

“Fierce, but little,” Hari half-remembers a quote from primary school, something about a person – a poem that she thinks describes both of them, right now, Hari and the locket. “Give me a moment, please, Kreacher. I’ve destroyed one of these before.”

* * *

Kreacher is far more civil after she destroys the locket and even tells Sirius of her bravery with glimmering eyes. Sirius is still slightly bamboozled by Hari and his special soul-healing when he learns how _Master Regulus_ dies – Hari learns later, when Sirius is bathed and wearing decent clothes that Regulus was his brother.

“What are you on the run from?” she asks him a week later over dinner made by Kreacher, who is cleaning and taking proper care of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place for the first time in many years. Dobby and he yell at each other, often, but Dobby is her personal house-elf and Kreacher is Elf of the House, as Sirius calls it, so Kreacher gets seniority.

Sirius is quiet for a time before he answers. Hari has avoided asking, until they were settled and she thinks it a good idea, now, to ask him when he has his long hair brushed and pulled back into a ponytail, his beard clipped close to his face. A week ago, he was still wearing his prison robes.

“Do you remember us talking about Secret Keepers?” he finally replies, asking his own question instead of answering. Hari thinks back – it’s hard, remembering that far back. Baby Hari was interesting in five things, that young: toys, her parents, her uncles, the cat and food. Vaguely, she can remember passing whispers, but not everything is clear, baby Hari having been distracted.

“…a little,” Hari replies. “Uncle Pete was the Secret Keeper.”

Sirius looks boneless, in that moment. He collapses in his chair, eyes blowing wide, full of hurt and guilt.

“ _Yes,_ ” he says, like a prayer, “Yes, Prongslet. We switched, Wormtail was Secret-Keeper and I led them away. _Wormtail was Secret-Keeper._ ”

They abandon dinner, Hari coming over and curling close, like she hasn’t done with anyone since her parents on Halloween, nineteen eighty-one. He tells her in stops and starts, crying and hugging her, acknowledging that she isn’t just some normal thirteen-year old witch. He tells her of Azkaban and dementors, of twelve muggles killed in Peter Pettigrew’s explosion and of seeing him in _The Daily Prophet_.

“Scabbers sleeps in Ron’s room,” she says, horrified. “And Percy’s, before!” Only Sirius’ tight grip on her stops Hari from flying right to the Burrow that instance.

“We need a plan,” Sirius replies, frosty and nearly as angry as she is.

Kreacher is their agent between Number Twelve and the rest of the world. He’s the one to capture Pettigrew and deliver him to the Ministry with a hand-written note from Sirius explaining his crimes – and then, he gets all of Hari’s Diagon Alley supplies, plus a full kit of witching regalia that she has no idea what to do with. Sirius, to his own amusement, finds himself teaching her, even if he – at first – scolds Kreacher for doing such a thing.

“He did his research, at least,” Sirius piles through the robes and books, checking dates and patterns. “This stuff wasn’t in fashion the last time I checked, oh, thirteen years ago.”

That is when Sirius shows his true colours.

By the end of it, Hari moodily wonders why her Aunt Petunia and Sirius never got on – they both like to use her as a Barbie-doll, after all.

On September first, Sirius comes along to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. _Practice makes perfect_ , she thinks, adjusting the glamour over his large, Grim form that makes him look like a particularly fluffy German Shepard of the same colours. Wagging his doggy tail as Kreacher pops away, Padfoot snuffles her elbow and then the Aurors surround her.

“Miss Potter!” the captain exclaims, “Where have you been?”

“Home,” Hari says, scrunching up her nose delicately. “Why?”

“Miss Potter, you’ve been missing ever since August sixth,” the captain says, “I need you to come with us, now, to the Ministry.”

“But it’s nearly eleven!” Hari gives her best panicked face, “What if I miss the train like last year? There’s no flying car, this time! She’s roaming the Forbidden Forest, now!”

The captain, thankfully, is disturbed enough that Hari can talk them out of taking her away – though two Aurors would be taking the Hogwarts Express with her to Hogwarts and then on to Professor Dumbledore’s office, where the appropriate authorities would be waiting.

Ron and Hermione meet her in the busy corridors of the train, startling at the sight of Padfoot. Greetings are exchanged and then, they take her to their compartment, which only has one extra person in it – a sleeping professor that makes Padfoot bark and yip in happiness.

 _Oh, I recognise you,_ Hari thinks, staring at his soul. A curse connected to the moon is stitched into the fabric of his being and even if she hasn’t seen him in twelve years, Hari recognises her only other living family member.

“Mate, control your dog,” Ron says, glancing out the compartment window to where people are looking through, trying to find the source of the noise.

“Fenrir, shush,” Hari orders, using her dogfather’s codename. Padfoot whimpers but quiets – but Remus wakes, coat slipping down onto his lap as he looks around, quite confused. They meet eyes and he freezes. Hari smiles.

“Hello, Uncle Moony.”

* * *

In Dumbledore’s office, Hari Potter meets the Minister of Magic for the first time. He isn’t what she expected.

“-and with all this ludicrous business surrounding Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black, well,” Cornelius Fudge huffs, smiling at her like you would a four year old. “Your safety is paramount, my dear. Where have you been? Your aunt and uncle must have been worried sick.”

“I don’t care about them – they’ve never cared about me,” Hari frowns at him.

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” Fudge chortles, thanking one of his aides for handing him his tea. “Family is everything.”

“You’ve never met my aunt and uncle,” Hari replies, running her nails between her teeth. Her stomach is full and warm – she wants to go to bed; she wants to say a proper hello to Parvati, Lavender, Sally-Anne, Fay and Sophie; she wants everyone to get off her case about her summer until Sirius is a free man.

Stupid Ministry. Stupid, lying _rat._ Sirius said they’d use a truth serum – but obviously not.

“Hari,” Fudge meets her eyes. “Tell us where you were these past few weeks. That’s an order from your Minister.”

“…I didn’t vote for you,” Hari replies, causing him to spill his tea a little. “I was fine. My new guardian is who I’ll be going home to for summers, now.”

“Hari,” Dumbledore says, then, interrupting. His eyes are dark and his face disappointed. “I’m afraid that won’t be happening. No matter what this person has said or done to you, you will not be going back to them.”

The meeting goes nowhere, but keeps going onwards; Professor McGonagall eventually comes up to the office, asking why her Gryffindor isn’t in bed. At Hari’s feet, Padfoot snuffles in agreement.

“It’s half one in the morning – leave her be, you old fossil,” McGonagall grumbles at Dumbledore, surprising Hari for a moment. Then, she yawns – she hasn’t slept in a few weeks, so Hari thinks it must be catching up now – and finds herself being hustled away, out of the office and down the staircase. “ _Fly to bed, your curtains are drawn,_ ” the deputy murmurs in her ear and Hari nods tiredly, flying straight into familiar covers, changing into pyjamas without much of a thought.

In the morning, Padfoot comes up to her at breakfast, Uncle Moony on his tail. Scandalised, Hari realises she’d left her dogfather behind when she flew away.

“Professor McGonagall entrusted him to me,” Uncle Moony says, amused as Hari apologises profusely to him. He runs a hand through his hair and Hari hears a strange swooning sound from one of the guys in Oliver Wood’s dorm. “We both had quite the fright when he showed his true colours – up to no good at all, this one.”

Hari pauses.

_Up to no good._

Now why did that sound like a password? Maybe because it came out of left-field, surprising and confusing, considering the first half of his sentence. _Sirius paid him and Professor McGonagall a visit,_ Hari deduces, wondering if they have allies now.

“Sorry, Uncle Moony,” she says, contrite, “Didn’t know he’d be so energetic at that hour.”

On Hermione’s other side, across the table, Fred suddenly starts choking on his cereal. George beside him, however, is staring at Remus in some kind of awe.

“Fred!” Hari exclaims, before he gets his coughing under control. He too, begins staring at Remus. Hari looks back at him, but their new DADA professor is nonplussed. Then, even more strangely, Fred and George stand up, hands on their hearts as they recite something together.

“ _I solemnly swear I’m up to no good,_ ” they say, standing tall. Remus stares at them, eyes suddenly widening, a grin lighting up his face.

Hari actually bothers to look at Oliver’s dormmate as he swoons dramatically, expression curling as he suddenly says, _so hot,_ under his breath. _NOPE, NOT GOING THERE!_ Hari twists away, looking to Padfoot as he yips and barks once or twice. Hari thinks the boy is called Greg.

“What in Merlin’s name are you doing?” Ron asks his brothers, blinking at them.

“It’s a code,” Remus replies for them, still grinning. He leans past Hari for a moment, body swaying over the breakfast table. Fred and George lean in and only Hari’s supernatural hearing manages to catch him saying, “ _Mischief managed, pleased to meet you, Marauders.”_

Fred and George look like they’re going to either faint on the spot or start doing a jig. Remus leans back, ruffling Padfoot’s illusionary mop of hair.

“Seeing as there’s a one-pet rule, I’m afraid I’ll be keeping custody of Fenrir, here, at least until your temporary guardian can come and collect him. I trust you’ll send him a letter?” Remus speaks again to Hari, tone bland.

Hari grins. “Of course, but he probably won’t answer.”

“I see, well,” Remus tucks his hands in the pockets of his – clean, not ratty like in the train, pressed and perfect like the ones Kreacher got for Sirius – robes, smiling. “Good day. I hope to see you in my class soon.”

“See you then, _professor,_ ” Hari sticks her tongue out, watching him turn around and return to the high table, Padfoot in tow. Then, she hears Oliver’s dormmate say, _and he’s good with kids, fuck my life._

Her smile turns upside down and Greg’s porridge explodes.


	2. Chapter 2

The third task of the Triwizard Tournament is a maze that takes over her quidditch pitch. Cedric and Hari mope and moan, Ludo Bagman not quite sure how to deal with two mopey teenagers. Their families are brought to watch – Sirius and Remus come in place of her parents, dressed in warm muggle-wear that makes Fleur Delacour’s family sniff in disdain, free and happy, supporting Hari where the world has not.

Hari sees Cedric die in the graveyard, at the hand of a man dressed in Professor Moody’s clothes. Her blood is spilt for a potion and light glimmers underneath her skin when three red drops fall into the cauldron.

“So… _powerful…_ ” Voldemort hisses and if Hari were not in shock, if she were not crying and in pain, Cedric’s body lying where she can see it, crumpled and _dead_ , she might have flown away already. “What are you, Hari Potter?”

There is a summoning of Death Eaters, an evil monologue and a duel. When Lily Potter flies out of Voldemort’s wand, James Potter is absent.

“ _He’s not like me, so he’s not here. But if he could, I know he’d protect you from this,_ ” her mother says, ghostly hand brushing Hari’s tear-strewn cheek. There are other ghosts around, spirits summoned by a powerful act of magic between brother-wands. An old man, a witch, Cedric- “ _Darling, my beautiful girl, you need to let go. We can distract him for a moment._ ”

“ _Take my body back, Hari,_ ” Cedric pleads and Hari _can’t_.

When they reappear in front of the school, Hari’s eyes glow gold. The transfigurations on her face melt away and her wings are shadows on her back. There is cheering and music, but then there is gasping and shouting, Cedric shaking beneath her body.

“What- I don’t-” he chokes on his words and Madam Pomfrey takes them away to the infirmary, ignoring the protests from government officials and Dumbledore.

No-one believes them when they tell the truth. Cedric shakes and flinches away from drawn wands, remembering that he was dead and that he was murdered. He backs away whenever Hari tries to speak to him and she- she gives up. She flies home and sends Sirius a dream of her in Number Twelve, Kreacher feeding her soup – the house-elf is very good at making soup.

Corruption, blasphemy. Her friends write, but Hari doesn’t reply. The Order of the Phoenix rises and Sirius offers Number Twelve as a sanctuary. Order members stare at her when they see her – they whisper to each other about how young she looks, wondering if Voldemort’s ritual stole the life from her.

When her uncles marry at Midsummer, Hari reaches up to each of their foreheads and blesses them, speaking in the Old Norse that she inherited from Loki. Then, Enochian escapes her mouth and she has three tongues.

The words make her uncles wince and shy away, but not as much as the angelic runes she carves on their ribs.

“You’re _mine_ , forever,” Hari says, not wanting any other angel to come to this universe and find them, or use them against her. Their pain fades, the guests at the wedding look at her strangely – but her uncles hug her tightly, murmuring similar promises into her raven-feather hair.

* * *

“You know you can tell us anything, right, Hari?” Ron says, tentative and sharing glances with Hermione. Hari nods, unsure of what they’d believe.

“I know, it’s just…it’s complicated,” Hari says, looking at Hermione with a small smile. “You’d never believe it without proof.”

Hermione rolls her eyes, “You’re proof enough. I might be _sceptical,_ but I won’t dismiss anything outright.”

“…in another universe, Judeo-Christianity had it right. Angels, everything,” Hari says, watching her best friend like a hawk. “My father came to this universe and became someone, because he couldn’t just float about doing nothing. James Potter wasn’t even cognisant yet. They became one, but my father was still…different. So I’m different, too.”

Hermione’s eyebrows rise up and up until she whispers, “You’re a nephilim? Hari, that’s- that’s _absurd._ Surely the other angels would have found you?”

“What’s a _nephilim?_ ” Ron questions, uneasy.

“Half-angel,” Hari explains shortly, “Half something else. Nephilim is plural, though. I’m a nephil. There’s a kind of muggle religion based around God, the Creator of the Universe, etcetera. God’s first creations were angels, otherworldly beings. They helped create animals and Earth. Then, God created humans. Some angels were a little sceptical about humans, but others liked them. There were a few wars and stuff, with one of the archangels, Lucifer, Falling down to Earth and becoming one of the greatest evils in creation.”

“Where did he fall from?” Ron asks, intrigued. He shuffles where he sits on the end of Hari’s bed, blowing a thick ginger strand of hair out of his eyes.

“Heaven. He created Hell, after, where some people go to be tortured for eternity when they die. The good ones go to Heaven.”

Hermione interrupts, “But if you’re a nephilim, why aren’t you…well, not to be rude, Hari, but why aren’t you _different?_ ”

“I am,” Hari says, “You just can’t see it. I’m as much a witch as you are – I’m just more than that, on the inside.” Perking up, she grins, “Do you want to see something cool?”

Her friends see the shadows of her wings and Kreacher pops into the room, conferring a message from Sirius. _Stop making thunderstorms when you show off your powers. We don’t want to draw more attention to you._

Hari pouts, then puts the six shadows of her wings away.

* * *

When she goes back to Hogwarts, Professor McGonagall pulls her aside and tells her they won’t be transfiguring her face anymore.

“But what about teatime?” Hari pouts. “I like teatime.”

Professor McGonagall rolls her eyes, but nods, “We can still have teatime. Just try to stay out of trouble this year – the Defence teacher is a Ministry plant. _Don’t_ offend her. When the Headmaster took yours and Cedric’s side, he allowed politics to be brought into Hogwarts. Watch out for yourself and your friends.”

“Yes, Professor,” Hari takes the warning for what it is, not expecting their DADA professor to be a small, toad-like woman with an obsession with pink.

There is a detention and a quill. As soon as she touches it, Hari drops it.

“No,” she says, glaring at the device which is as dark as you can get. Hari looks up at Professor Umbridge, who narrows her eyes.

“Yes. You will use the quill provided-”

“No, I will not,” Hari interrupts, glaring at _her_ , now. “This is dark magic. I could feel it reaching out as soon as I touched it.”

Umbridge turns pink, lips pursed. “You _will_ use the quill provided to write your lines, Miss Potter.”

“I’d rather pluck out my eyes,” Hari says, before flying away back to Gryffindor common room. It’s not the first time she’s flown in front of people, but her presence is unexpected. _This won’t do,_ she thinks, a foreboding filling her. _That quill was not destined to be used solely by me._

Hari spreads the word. She tells the common room, then Lavender and Parvati. The quidditch team are next, as she joins them at practice a few minutes later. The rumour makes it’s way through the Hogwarts grapevine and by the end of the week, even Slytherin are wary of the woman.

Dolores Umbridge finds her sugar replaced with salt. Meanwhile, in the DADA office, cat plates fall to the ground and smash at inopportune times. Often, she gets caught in the trick staircases – even falling through steps which were previously normal, no trick step in sight. Pink turns orange – the little bows for her hair gnaw at her curls.

“High five, boys,” Hari grins with Fred and George as Professor Umbridge lets out a wail in the distance.

* * *

Voldemort breaks out his most loyal followers from Azkaban.

A strange energy falls over Hogwarts. Slytherin students belonging to darker families allied with him start showing their true colours and Hari stops pranking the DADA professor so she can get revenge for Neville, stringing Draco Malfoy up by his underwear in the entrance hall and sending pictures to _Witch Weekly_.

“I’ll pay you back for that, Potter,” he threatens, red-faced and embarrassed. Malfoy stocks have dropped, apparently, according to Sirius’ newest letter. Hari pokes her tongue out at him.

“Eye for an eye, Malfoy,” she taunts, crossing her arms over her chest as he looms over her. “You hurt my friends, I hurt _you._ How does it feel to be the nephew of one of the most insane, fanatical dark witches of the century? I wonder if blood runs true – Sirius says her sanity is gone, that she’d kill her own sister if it meant pleasing her precious _Dark Lord._ ”

Something in Malfoy’s face shifts, then. Hari can almost hear what he’s thinking – _mother, no, the Manor, the Dark Lord_ – and wishes she can’t, but he’s ever so loud.

At teatime with Professor McGonagall, they discuss her OWLs and prospects. It’s almost normal, their conversation, up until Professor McGonagall delicately points out that few places would hire someone like her.

“You are quite…youthful, after all.”

Hari curls up in her chair, nibbling on a ginger newt. “It’s nice to pretend though,” she mumbles. “I’m not human. Human jobs aren’t for me. I won’t be able to do anything in the muggle world looking like this, either.”

“Miss Potter…” McGonagall sighs. “What of your father? The James Potter I know is dead, but from our conversations, you don’t seem to believe that…”

“That he’s dead?” Hari shakes her head, “No. No, he was an archangel. Few things can kill archangels. _Very_ few. The killing curse kills the body – but Grace can’t be harmed like that, I know it can’t.”

Maybe she’s so confident that her father is alive, because she felt him as a baby. She remembers being so scared, so startled and afraid because her parents were afraid. Baby Hari can remember the warmth of her mother’s blood sacrifice, in the name of Loki and Gabriel in a perfect, chaotic ritual for two deities. His presence folded around her when the killing curse rebounded.

_He can’t have protected me **and** be dead at the same time._

“What if you went searching for him, instead of pursuing a career?” McGonagall offers.

* * *

Hari likes her friends, she really does. Only, sometimes, they can be a bit more imaginative about her powers than she expects and it bamboozles her.

“Well? Why can’t you change what you look like?” Lavender asks, “You’re a _nephil._ If you want to look older, why don’t you look older? Do you _like_ looking eight instead of fifteen?”

Hari, rankled at Lavender’s comments, crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t know how to shapeshift. I don’t even know if I can do that kind of thing.”

“You can _fly_ ,” Parvati points out, “and you don’t have wings. There are anti-apparation wards around the castle, so it has to be some kind of nephilic power.”

“I _do_ have wings,” Hari scowls. “Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

Also see: when Hermione decided DADA was a shitty class and decided to name her the leader and teacher of their supplementary lessons.

“It’ll be fine – you’re good at magic,” Hermione assures her at that first meeting in the Room of Requirement, that had been revealed to them by the Lady Selene La’Abhir, a ghost who haunts the astronomy tower.

“But I’m so little,” Hari edges behind her, out of sight of the group. She feels mature, her age – but at the same time she’s a little girl and Hari _knows_ it. Her stop-gap at eight isn’t just physical and teaching these teenagers is daunting, made only worse by the fact that they’re her peers.

“Hari, you slew a basilisk at twelve and faced down- _Voldemort_ ,” Hermione stutters, “and a dragon at fourteen. You’re so brave and you know what it’s like, facing down impossible odds. You’re special, we all know it – use that. You can do _impossible_ things.”

“I’m not Alice, though, I can’t do seven impossible things before breakfast,” Hari clutches Hermione’s hand, teary-eyed. “Can’t you lead them?”

“It has to be _you_.”

Hari takes control of the club. It’s strange, but she _is_ good at this. While it might take a few weeks for her to get into the swing of things, eventually she begins to enjoy it. She plans lessons and writes out strategies to deal with specific students – like Neville, who hasn’t any confidence, like Luna who gets distracted easily – and when she goes to tea with Professor McGonagall, she talks about becoming a teacher, when she’s older.

One day, the DADA group – named _the League of Seven_ , which won after being drawn from a pointy hat – play around with the Room of Requirement rather than practice, the holidays fast approaching and everyone curious as to what kind of spaces the Room can become. They make a swimming pool, a bowling alley, a wizarding pub – with no alcohol or other drinks, _Gamps Law forbids it_ – and then, a room of treasures.

“…woah,” Dean Thomas says as he stares, “There’s _loads_ of stuff in here.”

“Centuries worth! Look at these tapestries!” Sophie Roper exclaims. More people filter into the room and a treasure hunt of sorts begins, people finding all sorts of belongings. Books, broken furniture, robes, out-of-date potions, cursed wine and more.

Hari sees another shard of soul inside the diadem that Luna finds, near the centre of the mass.

“It’s Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem,” Luna tells her, “but it’s not like it should be. Can you see it, Hari?”

“Yes,” Hari replies, reaching to pick it up, feeling how the darkness tries to ensnare her. It’s easy to bat away. “One moment.”

She flies out of the Room, to the Chamber of Secrets. The basilisk is mostly rotted away now, flesh peeling off its skeleton. Much like she did with the locket, Hari uses a fang to destroy it, recognising that the basilisk venom is enough to kill the _thing_ that desecrates this artefact. When she returns to Luna, the girl is investigating a cabinet.

“It’s broken, I think,” the dreamy girl says and Hari smiles with her, moving onto other curiosities.

* * *

_Vindictive and Psychotic: Is the Girl-Who-Lived Damaged by Her Past?_

A familiar scowl settles on Hari’s face as she reads Rita Skeeter’s newest article of the year, prattling on about her ‘dangerous habits’, ‘outrageous lies’ and ‘blatant egoism’. Umbridge is quoted many times, as is Malfoy junior – obviously as a way to save face after the underwear incident.

Abruptly, the rag is snatched from her grasp, rolled up and thrown somewhere in the direction of the Hufflepuff table. Hari easily accepts Angelina’s tight hug, the older girl providing her comfort in the face of slander. Her stomach twists and lurches and even with the arms wrapped around her, Hari distinctly does not want lunch anymore.

“I get justice and punish wrong-doers,” she mutters into Angelina’s red and gold quidditch jumper. They match, today, something Snape took great pleasure in docking points for – even though Malfoy was wearing _his_ quidditch jumper under his robes, too. “I’m not _vindictive._ ”

“No, you’re not. You’re a good person – your methods are just a bit over the top for the more conservative parts of the population,” Alicia grumbles, sitting down on Hari’s other side with Katie. “Still doesn’t give them the right to comment, though. That Malfoy twat deserved what he got.”

“Same with old Toad-Face,” Angelina adds, grip tightening once more before she dramatically loosens her hold on Hari. Hari herself simply slumps against her chest. “At least with all the trouble you’ve been giving her, she’s not been able to take any liberties with other kids in detention.”

“If I _ever_ see that quill again,” Hari glares at thin air, “I’m going to obliterate it.”

“You do that,” Angelina encourages fiercely.

The next letter she gets from Remus talks about how Sirius is suing _The Daily Prophet_ and doing surprisingly well. A retraction is printed two days later, coinciding with Hari’s decision to tell Headmaster Dumbledore about the soul shards she’s destroyed so far, delivering them to his desk with multiple basilisk fangs and telling him the story of the monster in her scar.

“I don’t know how many he made,” Hari says, squirming on her seat, “But, I mean- Regulus Black, he wouldn’t have sacrificed his life for any random object. He must have known. Voldemort must have told people, bragged about it…not enough for Lucius Malfoy to be careful, but enough.”

Headmaster Dumbledore nods, looking like he’s aged several decades. “I thank you for your service, Miss Potter. Am I to conclude this is where you hand off any more horcrux-hunting into my aging hands?”

 _Horcrux,_ she thinks, finally finding a name for each monstrous shard. Hari nods. “Yes, sir. Also, uh…he used my blood, sir, to come back. I’m not just a witch.”

“I _had_ heard the rumours,” Dumbledore shakes his head. “Let this reign of his be short. If you have anything else you’d like to add, please visit me anytime.”

Hari nods, standing and preparing to fly off – except she pauses, thinking of Bellatrix Lestrange, Neville and the idea of _justice._ Sirius is suing _The Daily Prophet_ for her – gold is already pouring into her vault.

“Sir,” she starts, an idea forming in her head, “Is there any chance that Neville can sue the Lestrange’s for torturing his parents, seeing as they’re obviously not serving their sentences anymore?”

Dumbledore’s eyes twinkle merrily as the idea sinks in. “Of course, Miss Potter. I shall send a letter to Augusta Longbottom herself.”

Later in the year, Hari receives a note from the Headmaster, referring to an _odd trinket_ from the Lestrange vault that had been very darkly cursed; he thanks her for the gift of the basilisk fangs, that managed to destroy the artefact.

* * *

There is a duel – a battle in the atrium of the Ministry of Magic. They say Voldemort was trying to invade the Department of Mysteries, but that he was ambushed by Dumbledore and his Order of the Phoenix. Voldemort is dead by Dumbledore’s hand and Dumbledore by a curse from only days before. The Fountain of Magical Brethren is destroyed, the air itself still crackling with conflicting magics and the floor is melted in places – Hari only knows that because she is visiting, going down to a special ceremony to be held in front of a Veil.

It’s where Remus was pushed through, after all.

Sirius barely holds himself together, holding her hand as they make their way down, using a gold, gilded elevator that is crowded with people. It goes up, down, sideways and horizontally, taking people where they need to go. They are two of four who are still there by the time they reach the Department of Mysteries.

“We shall guide you,” one of the two strangers say – people who must be workers in the department, if they know their way around.

 _They were after something down here,_ Hari thinks, knowing things she shouldn’t. They come to a chamber of doors that spin and make her dizzy, but as the DoM workers lead them straight through a seemingly random door, Hari glimpses another – seeing through the blackened wood to the warehouse beyond, full of shattered glass and shelves.

The Veil Room is vacant, except a small grouping which Sirius joins, pulling Hari along with him. People murmur condolences, a grey-haired Auror in a Weird Sisters t-shirt saying she’s sorry, that Bellatrix was about to kill her and Remus took her on without a second thought.

“It’s okay, Tonks,” Sirius lets go of Hari’s hand to embrace the shorter woman.

The lack of contact draws Hari’s attention away from the witches and wizards around her, towards the Veil that Remus fell through. Hari’s eyes widen at the whispering she begins to hear. Glancing around sees no-one else reacting to the whispers, only a few looking to the Veil every so often in apprehension. _Do they hear it too?_

Stepping closer, Hari quietly climbs up onto the podium, sneaking forwards. The whispers grow louder and Hari feels one of her senses come alive, making her wince as what feels like a thousand voices crowding her thoughts. All of it is Enochian.

“Prongslet, get away from there!” Sirius cries in despair and Hari turns back, allowing him to sweep her up in his arms, holding her in reassurance. She burrows her head in his shoulder, hearing the voices like they’re all around her.

It _hurts._

A wizard provides a memorial service in front of the Veil and no-one thinks twice when Hari starts crying, sobbing silently into Sirius’ shoulder. It’s only when she doesn’t stop the next morning that her uncle begins to worry.

“Make it stop, make the voices _stop,_ ” Hari pleads.

* * *

“You are nearly there,” Snape says, wincing as he rubs the bridge of his nose. “Occlumency is difficult enough for a full human being.”

“Was that a compliment?” Hari drawls, drawing her barriers up as strongly as she can – around her mind, around her magic and around her Grace, too, just for good measure. “Do I need Uncle Padfoot to call a healer?”

Snape scoffs, before leaving Number Twelve without another word, disappearing through the Floo Connection in the fireplace. Green flames quickly turn orange again as his destination is found. Soon, Hari is sat on the edge of her seat, trying to fold herself into herself – turning her Grace inside out, so it seems like it isn’t there at all.

_Hide. I have to hide. If I ever want to go to my father’s universe, I need to be able to hide who I am._

“Prongslet, dinner?”

“Not hungry, thanks, Uncle Padfoot,” Hari replies distantly, feeling her tail angrily whip around, wanting to be free to curl around her leg like usual. She doesn’t let it though – except, concentrating on her tail gives her other heads enough leeway to pop up from her shoulders instead of slumbering. Annoyed, Hari gives up entirely, focusing on her headspace instead. Tougher it might be, but at least what she put up _stayed_ up.

Time passes. Her OWL results come the same time she stays over at the Burrow and she forwards them onto Sirius at St Mungo’s mind-healing ward so he can see, too – but she keeps the Quidditch captain badge to herself, not quite sure how to process the fact that her best friends are prefects, too.

“You really are a midget, aren’t you?” the Auror guard to the Hogwarts Express chuckles over her height, causing a short round of laughter from the rest of his squad. Hari tries to ignore the comment, but then she is left alone in a compartment, Ron and Hermione off being prefects.

A first-year introduces themselves, ignorant and naïve. They ask Hari what House she thinks she’ll get into and Hari misses how Neville, Ginny and Luna try to find her, because she’s already flown away to Hogwarts. Professor McGonagall startles and Madam Pomfrey spills her tea all over her dressing gown.

“Miss Potter! What are you doing here?” McGonagall splutters.

“I don’t know,” Hari replies, voice cracking and then she’s crying, because she’s _eight damnit._ Emotions are hard. Hari is eight and she is sixteen – and she cannot deal with the gap anymore. “I want my dad,” she sobs into McGonagall’s lap, clutching at her dress and wishing that this world would _forget_ – wishes that Sirius could have peace so she could leave, wishes that her friends wouldn’t mind that she’s gone, wishes she knew a way to find her father.

_He’s not human, just like me. He has to understand how I feel, surrounded by- surrounded by **mortals.**_

Her Grace fluctuates. There is a moment of stillness in the world, before a great power pushes outwards from her. Hari feels it like a shockwave inside her, draining her powers and diminishing her Grace – but only momentarily, only for a second. She’s back at full power almost immediately.

“Hari…” Professor McGonagall murmurs, looking down at her where Hari lies on her lap in confusion. Hari instantly knows what she has done – knows that she needs to reach up now, to take these memories from her.

 _The last time you saw me was Remus’ memorial,_ Hari impresses upon her mind, doing the same to Madam Pomfrey before flying away, leaving them blinking and befuddled.

Hari flies. She flies and flies and flies, circling the world and eventually finding herself in front of the Veil once more. The voices in Enochian grow loud as she steps forwards, but Hari uses what Snape has taught her of occlumency to turn down the volume, putting walls between her and- and the other angels.

 _My family. My family who might kill me._ Hari reaches out a hand, touching the Veil Between Worlds. _If I step through here, they…oh, who knows what they’ll do. Not me._

Sucking in a breath, Hari lowers her hand. She doesn’t know what will happen if she steps through the Veil – the only thing she knows is that she’ll be in the universe of her father. Something primal inside her knows it.

_What about my things? My belongings, my pictures and the invisibility cloak?_

Hari’s eyes widen in thought.

“My invisibility cloak,” she whispers, _knowing_ it hides her Grace, _knowing_ it will help her, here. She summons it feeling the ancient magic in every thread. Hari pulls it on, over her muggle jeans and round-neck t-shirt. Hari wonders what to take with her – wonders if things will come with her at all. There’s a trunk of her belongings on a train heading North. What should be inside – a wand, a cloak – are not.

Hari decides that maybe, that’s for the best.

Then, closing her eyes, like her Uncle Remus – Hari falls through the Veil of Death.


	3. Chapter 3

Her father’s universe is the same as her own, but yet – it is not.

There is no Hogwarts. There is no magical castle on a hill, overlooking a loch full of magical creatures. The air is different – empty, even while Hari feels the sky pressing down on her and heat underneath her toes, two different dimensions so very close together, linked by the Earth around her, that take the place of what was _magic_ in her home universe.

 _This is my home, now,_ she thinks, trying to navigate this unfamiliar world. Her task is suddenly daunting and Hari doesn’t know how to find him. Her wishes were answered in her universe – her Grace billowed out and turned her world on an axis, so the ones who know her forget she exists and if they do remember her, they think _oh, no, Hari’s perfectly well_.

Hari hasn’t even been in her father’s universe a day, when she tries to go back.

There is no Veil, though – no tear in space-time for her to take, to use as a shortcut to where her father resides. There is no way back for her, not right now. Hari cries and flies from place to place, hiding from the humans who see a child and not a nephil. The Host hear her weeping on Angel FM and there is a calamity in her head, angels trying to speak to her and arguing with each other at the same time.

“Leave me alone,” she whispers, but there’s no way for her to _unhear_ some of the things they say. Some angels want to blast her off the face of the Earth. Some want to harness her Grace and use it to overpower _the_ _Vessel of Michael/Dean Winchester/Michael-sword_ and deliver _the Morningstar’s body/Sam Winchester/Lucifer’s True Vessel_ to the Devil’s doorstep.

Hari travels, flying blindly, trying to get away from the angels that are suddenly dogging her footsteps. Her first glimpse of another angel is startling and equally as disturbing – how they curl around the soul of the human they inhabit, possessing their bodies and imprison them deep within their Grace.

The angel had stared at her and for a few moments, everything had been still. For the first time, Hari feels naked – like something is seeing her for the first time and of course, the angel _is_.

“…nephil. You are not meant to exist,” the angel says and it is enough. Hari flies, outpacing them easily. Compared to her, the angel is sluggishly slow and in this world where two dimensions live on the precipice of the third, it is both easier and harder to see others.

 _They’re beautiful,_ Hari thinks, when she looks across the higher plane, seeing the Grace of many angels across the globe. They _are_ beautiful. It is also the only time Hari does that trick, because the moment she sees them, they see _her_ and the chase is back on. Unlike the angels, though, Hari has a body – her _own_ body, not a human she wears like a set of clothes.

 _Hide away,_ she convinces her tail, which slinks away out of sight, disappearing into her shadows. _Become one,_ she says to her heads, that blur and push into one another, moulding themselves into a facsimile of her human features. Hari’s other nephilic features – appendages Hari’s grown over the years on the other plane of existence, like the half-dozen mouths left of her neck, the extra arms that match as many ribs as she has, the emerald scales that run across her torso and thighs – are easier to push down under her skin, back to where they were before they appeared.

Then a boy looks at her and says, “ _Wow._ ”

* * *

They’re in Australia, eating ice-cream at the base of the Sydney Opera House. Jesse says she has to a wear a hat – it’s law here.

“It’s because we’re kids,” Jesse says, already half-finished his cone. There’s a hat with corks hanging off it on his head, sunscreen smeared messily over his pasty skin. “I pretend to be an adult, sometimes, but I don’t like it. I feel too tall.”

Hari thinks of polyjuice potion – of how it felt to be tall and large, to be _Goyle_ instead of _Hari._ She nods. There’s an identical hat on her own head. “I know what that’s like.”

Jesse looks at her and he sees into her head, scrunching up his face at the events of her life. “Your life is weird.”

Hari shrugs, “Yeah, but who cares about me? I made my family forget me.” _Sirius. Hedwig. Professor McGonagall. Madam Pomfrey. Ron and Hermione._ Her heart clenches. “What about you? You said you ran away.”

“Demons are after me,” Jesse says. “Men told me about a war going on, between angels and demons. A demon took possession of my mom and tried to convince me to come with them. My parents are safer with me away from them. You’d be safe with me, though. They’re human, you’re not.”

Hari feels a foreboding, “No, Jesse. Angels are after me. They either want to kill me or coddle me – I can hear them arguing, in my head.”

“Can I hear, too?” Jesse asks, though she can feel his power – his restraint is new, being tested every second. “Please?”

“It’s loud,” Hari warns, “ _Really_ loud. It took me ages to get used to it.” A week, to be exact. The smidgeon of tolerance she grew towards hearing it was enough for her to work on her shields without being distracted. Even now, though, it’s hard.

Jesse hesitates. Still, though, it’s clear when he taps into the angel’s own personal communication array. Bare seconds later, hands clamped over his ears, he cuts off the connection. Hari lets out a pitiful whimper, hearing his pained yell – every angel in Heaven and Earth must have heard that.

“We’ve got to go,” she mumbles, grabbing his elbow and flying them to the other side of the globe before any angel could follow the source of the cry. Their ice-creams are left to melt on the sidewalk.

The east coast of England is dreary and dark, the ocean off to one side, waves crashing off the base of cliffs. Jesse shivers immediately and Hari conjures him a coat, rubbing his arm.

“Hate to say I told you so,” Hari says regretfully, a smile tugging at her lips when Jesse pushes her roughly. “Angel radio a bit too much, huh?”

“I liked Sydney,” Jesse grumbles, pulling the coat on and zipping it up with sticky fingers. “Aren’t you cold?”

Hari shakes her head, laughter bubbling up out of her mouth, “I went to school in the Scottish Highlands – this is mild compared to winter, there. I didn’t even wear a coat, up there. Hermione always fussed over us all. She used to make these bluebell flames and put them in jars for us to huddle around in the corridors.”

“Can you show me?” Jesse asks, eyes alight in childish wonder. Hari nods eagerly and raises her hand, summoning her wand at last minute.

Magic is different to Grace. It’s instinct by now to summon and banish her wand with Grace, but for wizarding magic, she doesn’t even _try_ using Grace to power her charms and spells. Magic is too different – though she’s sure she could manage warping reality enough to mimic the effects using Grace. Habit and choice overpowers any want for minimalism.

Bluebell flames are pretty and not a powerful spell to complete. Jesse watches her, awed at her display of powers. The boy seems to forget he has his own to play with, for a while.

Eventually, though, they have to scram again. Jesse opened himself up to being found when he imprinted his psychic voice on all angels in hearing range. Hari flies them to Rome, then Jesse takes them to the Empire State Building, New York. They go from country to country, together, somehow turning it into a game as time passes.

“I bet I can find us somewhere even better to go…” Jesse says to her, thinking hard. “What about Japan?”

Hari scoffs, “You’ve never been to Japan! How can you go somewhere you’ve never been?”

Jesse sticks out his tongue and then they go to America again, where Jesse went on holiday once, camping with his parents. But the angels keep following them, following Jesse like bloodhounds – Hari hears nothing of herself on Angel Radio, all drowned out in the face of Jesse’s existence.

“I’ll keep you safe,” she promises her new friend.

In hindsight, that’s her mistake.

* * *

An hour later, Jesse leaves her a note on a paper napkin saying sorry, goodbye and good luck trying to find her father. Hari scowls at it and stuffs the napkin in her pocket under a preservation charm. _Self-sacrificial child,_ she thinks and oh, doesn’t it _burn,_ being left behind? Is this how Sirius would feel, if he remembered her properly? Betrayed? Angry?

She flies blind again and ends up somewhere in America, in the middle of a hurricane. She gasps as rain lashes down, soaking her immediately. The cold is more of a shock than anything and in the distance, she sees cars and lights.

 _Civilisation,_ Hari thinks, scurrying across the land towards the motorway. Across it, is a hotel lit up with fancy neon lighting – _Elysian Fields Hotel_ reads off the signage and Hari is nearly run over when she tries to cross, giving into the human side of her that wants to get dry, warm and out of the rain.

“Woah, are you okay?” the driver yells over the thunderous storm around them, after he’s parked and out of the drivers seat, pulling his jacket over his head. He moves forwards and Hari does so as well, confused by his very existence. Hari is very, _extremely_ sure that if Hari hadn’t seen him with her own two eyes, she never would have known he was there.

 _Your soul is hidden,_ Hari thinks as he sees her, reaching out and pulling her plastered form to his side.

“C’mon, let’s get you inside!”

“Dean, who is she?” another man yells over the rain, another man who _Hari didn’t sense._ There are souls inside the building in front of them, human beings and _others_. Hari’s eyes whip back and forth between them, fascinated and scared.

“Inside, Sammy!” Dean shouts and then they’re half-walking, half-running to the glass doors, barrelling through them into the warmth. “Kid, you alright?” Dean questions her, shaking off his jacket before hunching down to her height. “What were you doing out there in that storm? Where are your parents?”

“Not- not here,” Hari answers, stuttering. She stares at him, then realises something strange. _Sammy. Dean._ She looks between the two men, who found Jesse and told him what he was. “You’re _them._ ”

Dean frowns, “You know us?”

“You’re the ones that helped Jesse,” Hari says, convinced and shivering. Being soaked is getting to her – with everything hidden away under her skin, nephilic and pagan less effective at keeping her warm, her human side is coming out more. Hari dreads to think she could get a cold, like this. Colds look _nasty._

“You know Jesse?” Sam asks in disbelief, “Jesse Turner?”

“Hello, can I help you?” someone then asks. Hari and the Winchester’s look across to where a white man in a red suit smiles at them. _One of the hotel staff,_ Hari recognises, but he is one of the _others._ Hari sees how his eyes stray from the men to her, eyebrow rising slightly. “Is everything alright?”

“…yes, everything’s okay,” Hari says, confident and bracing. She stands up straight. “But I’m a little wet. Is there any chance I could be lent a towel?”

“Of course,” the man says, getting the attention of a bellboy. Hari squints at his name-tag, reading _CHAD_. “Get this young lady something to dry off with, if you would.”

“Yes, sir,” the bellboy goes off, disappearing around a corner.

“Hell of a storm out there,” Dean says to Chad, standing up straight. His hand clasps Hari’s shoulder and she gets impressions from him that say _quiet, threatening, wary, curious_. “We were taking my niece here home but got caught out by the weather. We’d like to check in for the night, please.”

He gives them an easy-going smile, leading them over to the desk.

“Nice digs, for once” Dean comments, glancing back at the full lobby, “Busy night.”

“Any port in a storm, I guess,” Chad chuckles, readying the paperwork. “If you could just fill this out, please.”

The busboy returns as Dean fills out the forms, Hari slipping around him to take the offered towel. “Thank-you,” she says, smiling as she wraps the deep red fabric around her shoulders. The bellboy is another one of the non-human _others_ , who looks at her curiously before reaching over to tug the towel lightly, bringing it further around her neck.

Simultaneously, a note burns against her skin as the bellboy tucks it into her collar.

“Go grab the sleeping boy-wonder,” Dean says to Sam gruffly, who looks at Dean as if what he’s asking is terribly unfair. Dean raises an eyebrow at him. “You want to leave him in the car? I’m sure he’ll thank you later when he dies from hypothermia.”

Sam rolls his eyes, “I’ll get him.” Stomping back towards the exit, Hari briefly pities him before she pulls her towel around her shoulders tighter.

Chad queries Dean, “Will you be needing more than the one room, sir?”

“Yeah, two, if that’s alright. Twins, both of them,” Dean replies, giving a fake grin, “Road trip with the bros, y’know?”

Chad smiles politely, taking back the paperwork, “Just let me find you some adjacent lodging. One moment.”

As Chad turns away, Dean puts a hand on Hari’s shoulder again, leaning down to whisper in her ear. A cut on his neck starts bleeding at the movement. “Keep this up until we’re in the rooms. My brother Adam won’t know what’s going on, so as soon as you see the keys, nab one and go get dried off. If anyone asks who you are, tell ‘em you’re Karen Winchester.”

Hari wrinkles her nose, but nods. _Karen. Right. That’s **completely** fine…_but she might as well go along with the charade. When he stands up tall, she gives him a toothy grin, timing her snatching of the offered key well enough that the man gains an amused expression.

“I’m going to take a shower!” Hari exclaims.

“We’ll be eating,” Dean says, before Chad adds that there’s an all-you-can-eat buffet, with pie. Dean points at him, “Very nice.”

“I’ll dry off then come join you!” Hari says, the epitome of an excitable eight-year old. Just in time, she runs away, Dean following behind at a more sedate pace with a dripping Sam and another, seemingly-invisible soul.

When she gets to the right room, Hari opens it with the key, leaning against the door to hold it open. The note tucked into her collar reads, ‘ _You were not invited, but you are welcome, youngling’_. She sees Dean and his brothers come down the hall and for a moment, she wonders what she’s doing. These are strangers. These men could be dangerous.

 _Jesse trusted them,_ Hari thinks, the thought niggling in her brain. _And he’s the bloody Antichrist._ But their names are familiar for other reasons, for how the angels shouted about them. Vessels. They were called vessels of archangels, who are destined to come into conflict and destroy the Earth during the skirmish.

Something tells Hari, mainly with how the way the angels spout that kind of stuff so calmly, that there might be a more sensible explanation as to why they haven’t said _Yes_ than ‘maggot stupidity’.

“Kid, meet Uncle Adam,” Dean says shortly, before they hustle into the room. When the door closes, Hari gets her first proper look at him.

At first glance, Adam is different from his brothers. His hair is blonder, his skin whiter – but he’s the same height and build as Dean, or thereabouts, while Sam is a giant. Similarly, where Sam has wavier hair, with a kind of awkward middle parting and sideburns, Adam and Dean have short, spiky hair; but Hari can see the resemblance, all in all, even if Sam is the odd one out.

“Who are you? How did you guys pick up a kid in the five minutes between arriving and waking me up?” Adam asks, obviously a little agitated. “Is this normal for you guys?”

“No, not at all – she just knew who we were, out of the blue,” Dean says, finally turning on Hari. “Spill. Who the hell are you, kid?”

“Hari,” Hari introduces, sticking out her hand. Dean is close enough to shake, but instead he gives it a funny look. Upon seeing it, Hari knows she’s not going to get a handshake. Dropping it, she tucks her towel further around herself before taking it off, drying her clothes off with a quick bat of her Grace.

Immediately, the three take a step back, seeing the effects. A gun is drawn.

“What the fuck? Are you an _angel?_ Are you really wearing a kid?” Dean demands.

“I’m not an angel,” Hari frowns. “Jesse trusts you. You knew what he was before he did.”

“Whose Jesse?” Adam quickly questions.

“Jesse was a cambion,” Sam explains, lecturing gently. “Half-human, half-demon. He had incredible powers. When Lucifer rose, his powers were awoken and he didn’t know what was happening.”

“Jesse’s on the run from angels, now,” Hari says, sitting down on the nearby bed. She folds the towel on her lap, trying to summon her human maturity of a sixteen-year old. “The demons had no idea who they were tracking, so they never got a hold of him, but he accessed the angel’s…I suppose you could call it radio, like I do, or a walkie-talkie frequency. He got freaked out and accidentally told every angel alive who and what he was. He left me behind.”

“Not good,” Sam mutters. “How is he?”

Hari shrugs, looking at her hands. “Okay. Lonely, I think. We were friends – we played games, hopping the globe. It was fun. He’s very brave.”

“Yes, he is,” Sam agrees, sounding sad. Hari can feel it radiating off him, though Dean is more a haven of guilt.

“Who are you, then? How did you get those powers?” Adam asks her.

Hari licks her lips, “I suppose you could say that Jesse and I are opposites. He’s half-human, like me. But where one of his parents was a demon, mine was an angel.”

Her words get a certain reaction from each of them. From Dean, there’s a curse and some grumbling; from Sam, there’s shock and movement as he comes forwards, crouching nearer her, looking at her in a kind of fearful awe; and Adam, well, he takes a step back.

“You’re half-angel?” Sam asks, eyes wide. “A nephilim?”

“Nephil,” Hari corrects him. “Nephilim is plural. I have nephilic powers and…stuff. I’m trying to find my dad.”

“Dad? So…your angel parent possessed a guy,” Sam hazards.

“It’s actually more complicated than that,” Hari smiles tightly. “He _was_ them. He grew up and didn’t know he was an angel. Then he and my mother were killed and I grew up with my aunt and uncle.”

“Killed?” Sam shares a look with Dean. “Hari, are you sure? Because it sounds like your father Fell from Heaven. That means he would have been human until he found his Grace – his angel powers. If he died…”

“Kid,” Dean cuts in, drawing her attention. “How in control of your powers are you?”

Hari frowns. “I’m older than I look. I’ve been training with my powers for a few years, now. Why? What aren’t you saying?”

“Hari,” Sam says, shaking his head. “Fallen angels don’t miraculously become angels again when they die. They…well, they don’t become angels again.” He repeats himself, looking chagrined. He doesn’t know everything about angels – but he knows more than Hari does, right now.

“He’s alive, though, I know he is,” Hari says. “If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here in this world.”

“This world?” Dean raises an eyebrow.

“I’m from another universe. There aren’t angels, there,” Hari explains, “It’s why the angels didn’t know about me until recently. They were looking for me, up until Jesse brought attention to himself.”

“Another universe. Right. Well…” Sam stands up from his crouch, stretching a little.

“Food?” Hari suggests, knowing there’s not much more to talk about. Sam and Dean exchange a look with each other that talks of a strong connection, glancing over at Adam at the same time. He looks between them, glancing at Hari nervously only once before shrugging.

“Sure, I guess. Food’s food.”

“I _am_ hungry,” Hari licks her lips, stomach grumbling. Dean tilts his head.

“Me too. The guy at the desk said they had pie; and a buffet.” He wriggles his eyebrow at Sam, who rolls his eyes at his brother’s antics.

They go to the restaurant. Hari fills up her plate, joined by Adam and a little by Dean; Sam however, doesn’t, which Dean moans over after being rejected by a pretty woman with the same colouring as Hari.

“You’ve got a type,” Adam jokes, nudging Hari. Dean splutters.

“I am _not_ her dad!”

Hari wrinkles her nose. “He’s really not.”

“It was just a joke,” Adam rolls his eyes over sirloin steak, sipping beer and matching Dean bottle for bottle. Dean has more chips, which Hari takes advantage of, stealing off his plate when he isn’t looking. Sam watches in amusement as Dean notices, slapping her hand.

“Go get your own! Buffet, _buf-fet!_ ” Dean says it slower, like she doesn’t know what one is. Hari doesn’t stop stealing chips, though. Her skin is crawling and someone passes them, a someone who like many in the hotel, is _other_ and _not human._

Something grazes across her neck, like a papercut. Hari jerks, reaching up to touch the stinging area, fingers coming away bloody.

“Hari?” Sam addresses her, concerned. He reaches over, the table small enough that it isn’t a far distance. His hands are soft and warm, but strangely large. One tilts her chin up and towards Dean, the other hovering around the cut. “What happened here?”

“Don’t know,” Hari puts her fingers in her mouth to suck the blood off, Dean aborting his movements to eat. He reaches for napkins, chastising her like she’s a child, cleaning her of the coppery substance.

_Well…I am a child, sort of._

It’s like Sirius and Remus, except not, because her uncles – her real uncles – treated her like a teenager. They didn’t judge her for appearances, not when what made her _Hari, nephil-pagan witch_ , was what brought them together. The closest to coddling Sirius got was their hugs and his way he treated her political enemies with extreme prejudice.

When Hari goes to get dessert – letting her guard down a bit, getting _comfortable_ as banter flows gently between the three brothers, who stutter and slow every so often like it isn’t what they’re used to – the woman Dean had approached is there.

“Little lion,” she says, looking down at Hari with something like curiosity, but dangerous _– far_ more dangerous that the others, like the bellboy and Chad. The woman slips into Hindi the next moment, “ _Your name means lion, you know. Where are you from, precious?_ ”

“ _Britain,_ ” Hari replies, biting her lip. “ _Where are you from?_ ”

“ _India,_ ” the woman says, holding out her hand, nails sharp and perfect. “ _I’m Kali. No-one but us speaks this language here._ ”

Hari looks around. Her Grace burbles in agreement even as she reigns it in, stopping her tail from curling out from where it’s been hiding, upset. “ _What are you? I’ve never met people like you and the others._ ”

“ _We’re gods, precious,_ ” Kali coos, pulling Hari closer as their hands connect, reaching up with her spare limb to curl in a stray hair. She loops it behind Hari’s ear, smiling. “ _But you’re a rare bloom. A demigod…and something else, besides. You’re doing a **very** good job at hiding it, pet._”

Nerves tickle her stomach. “ _You can tell?_ ” Hari asks, gripping Kali’s hand tightly.

“ _I can,_ ” Kali says, nodding. “ _The others do, too. They aren’t as clever as me, though. You remind me of someone I know._ ”

Hari’s heart pounds in her chest. She says her father’s Pagan name. “ _Loki_.”

Kali looks delighted, but even then, something in her eyes is hesitant. “ _Yes. Loki. An old…friend. One with many colours and powers. They are your father, yes?_ ”

“ _Yes,_ ” Hari nods. “ _Do you know where I can find him? We lost each other._ ”

“ _I don’t and I can’t, not right now,_ ” Kali says, _“but what of your mother? What poor soul dared sire a child with Loki the Silver-Tongued?_ ”

“ _Her name was Lily,_ ” Hari says, “ _I never knew her._ ”

Kali nods, before changing their positions, holding her hand normally rather than clutching it. “I’ve heard the pie is the best in the tri-state area,” she says, back to English now.

“I don’t know what tri-state means,” Hari confides, eyes landing on a tart topped with fruit and cream. “What’s that one?”

“No idea,” Kali breezes, before finally letting go of her, reaching to serve Hari one, all to herself. As they disconnect, Hari feels a loss, blinking at the strange feeling. _Like pulling a thread from a coat,_ Hari tries to think of what it could have been, itching her wrist as Kali hands her the tart on its plate.

“Thank-you,” Hari says, before Kali ducks down to press a kiss to her cheek, murmuring a short farewell in her native language. Hari grabs a fork on her way back to the Winchester’s, Sam immediately pouncing.

“Who was that? Did she know you?”

“Not really,” Hari says, eating her pie. She wonders whether to tell them Kali is a goddess, that this hotel is _full_ of pagans – but then she thinks of how Kali spoke to Hari in Hindi, keeping the conversation private. “We’re both part-Indian, though. She said she liked my hair.”

Adam snorts, “It’s a mess.”

Hari flushes, glaring at him. She blinks once, Grace reaching out in a burst of colour. “Yours is worse, _old man uncle._ ”

That confuses him, up until Sam starts snorting with laughter, Dean’s eyes going wide in glee.

“Oh _bro,_ ” he says, laughing. Adam reaches up, not understanding until he pulls the now-white strands down over his forehead to see. He nearly chokes on his steak.

“My hair! What did you do to it, you little shit?”

“It’ll wear off…when I want it to,” Hari eats some more of her pie, smug as can be.

“Haha,” Dean snickers, “Little prankster- or trickster, even. Sure your father isn’t Gabriel?”

Hari nearly chokes on her pie.

* * *

“This is all a bit much,” Sam says, pacing back and forth. They’re in the hotel room again, Dean and Hari munching on the little chocolates left on the beds’ pillows. Adam is sat on a chair, elbows on his knees as he watches Sam pace, arms left hanging. “I mean, other universes, nephilim-”

“Try not to say it too much,” Hari interrupts, gut twisting. She’d come clean about her conversation with Kali, _obviously._

The Winchester’s know her father.

 _The Winchester’s know her father_.

But not only that, apparently Gabriel is in a female vessel, a ‘she’ to all the world who looks. A short, stubborn _she._ Hari suddenly has another mother in place of a father, even if angelic gender is a little on the skewed side. Sam had blushed a bit. Hari was instantly reminded of Oliver’s roommate and Remus and felt uneasy.

The Winchester’s know her father.

The Winchester’s know- know her _mother._

“It could attract…attention,” Hari continues, tugging at her jeans.

“Yeah, like you haven’t already,” Dean barks. “Pagan gods. All throughout the hotel. You know, the last pagan gods we met tried to _eat_ us.”

“Right and whose to say this isn’t a giant honey-trap, meant to feed them?” Sam questions, just as a loud thump comes from the next-door room. “I mean, a four-star hotel on a no-star highway?”

That, of course, is when the wall just about caves in, knocking the TV off the wall.

“What the hell?” Adam shoots up, he and Sam stepping back and away from the wreckage. Alarmed, the group check next door, finding an empty room and an engagement ring on the carpet.

“Something’s wrong, here,” Hari whispers, to full agreement.

Chad is at the desk when Sam and Hari go out to ask on the couple, Hari playing up the curious kid as she plays with the ring visibly. Chad spies it soon enough, once they make eye-contact. Then, she reaches out with a scant feeler of Grace.

_Rome-_

It’s enough. Chad startles, blinking wildly, before Hari starts speaking in Italian. “ _Are you eating people, here?_ ”

Chad stares at her, then- a smile, bright eyes and white teeth. “ _Are you hungry, little one?_ ”

“ _No,_ ” Hari replies, giving him the ring but playing a role she’s less familiar with – or try _not_ familiar with, because she’s never had to pretend to be a cannibalistic trickster before. “ _Unless you already murdered them, give them the ring back. It’ll freak them out. Humans are funny like that._ ”

Chad chuckles, taking the ring and saying in English, “Thank-you, Miss Winchester. I’ll just put it in the lost and found. Don’t you worry. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Stomach sinking – _lost and found, lost and found, were they just words or are they dead already?_ – Hari shakes her head, taking Sam’s hand as they head back to where Dean and Adam are waiting.

The night goes on.

Doors are locked, men are elephants, Sam and Adam gain slices on their necks identical to those on Dean and Hari’s and no matter how many times she tries, Hari cannot fly out of the hotel. The pantry is full of people, yet to be eaten, but there’s a pot with an eye in it and Hari throws up in a sink.

Pagans come for them. The bellboy is kind, holding her elbow rather than manhandling her. Hari herself gets something of a stink-eye from Dean, but Sam is clever enough to remember the note she showed them earlier.

 _I’m welcome,_ Hari thinks as she’s sat down at the table rather than with the Winchester’s. _But they **eat people**._

“Dinner is served!” Chad opens the proceedings to applause with a trolley, a human head on a plate making Hari want to throw up. Then, a new pagan in a suit speaks. The label on his suit names him _Baldur_ and if Hari squints, she can see _Mercury_ on Chad’s red coat, now.

“Ladies and gentlemen, our guests of honour have arrived,” Baldur says, clinking his glass with a fork. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. Although in all my centuries, I never thought I’d see this. This many gods under one roof…now, before we get down to brass tacks, some ground rules. No slaughtering each other. Curb your wrath. Oh and uh, keep your hands off the local virgins. We’re, trying to keep a low profile here.”

The Winchester’s murmur to each other, but the pagan gods don’t pay them any mind. Hari listens, trying to learn the lay of the land, as it were. What she finds isn’t pretty and she wonders if Loki eats human flesh, if he slaughters other pagans and sacrifices virgins for power.

Baldur smiles, congenial and smarmy. “Now we all know why we’re here. The Judeo-Christian apocalypse looms over us. I know we’ve all had our little disagreements in the past. The time has come to put those aside and look toward the future. Because if we don’t, we won’t have one.”

… _pretty good speech,_ Hari thinks and all the while, she takes in information. Baldur speaks and she listens. Her eyes read nametags, eyeing up Odin and wondering who Zao Shen is.

“Now, we _do_ have two very valuable bargaining chips,” Baldur says, motioning to the Winchester’s. “Michael and Lucifer’s vessels, the former by the double. The question is, what do we do now? Anybody have any bright ideas? Speak up. This is a safe room.”

Killing them is spoken of and argued – pettily. Very pettily. It grows into a ruckus, especially when the Winchester’s try to leave, but Kali finally speaks from where she stands at the head of the tables with Baldur. But even she turns to violence, torturing Chad- Mercury, until Baldur stops her.

Then-

“Can’t we all just get along?” in saunters in a woman, nametag reading _Loki_. Her face is plain, but her eyes are sharp and hazelly-green, scraggly brown hair up in a high pony-tail. In blue jeans and a grey tank-top with a long, green canvas jacket tied around her waist, she isn’t as visually impressive as Kali and Baldur – but that’s just the outside.

Inside, she’s _bright._

Hari can hardly take her eyes off her. Loki is hiding, that much is clear, but Hari is _looking_ for an angel beneath the pagan power and she finds it. Her Grace quivers and Loki is hidden by Dean and Adam as Hari regains control, locking down and trying to breathe properly.

“Sam, Dean, new kid,” Loki sighs, reaching over to run her hand down Sam’s chest, “It’s always _wrong place, worst time_ with you muttonheads, huh babes?”

“Loki…” Baldur grits his teeth.

Loki glances over, wiggling her free hand in a half-hello, “Baldur, good seeing you, too. I guess my invitation got lost in the mail.”

“Why are you here?” Baldur asks, but Kali interrupts Loki’s reply.

“Do you know who that is, Loki?” Kali asks, pointing straight at Hari. Loki glances over, blinking in confusion. Her hand drops from Sam’s chest.

Hari stares.

“No. Which is a bit unusual. I might not get on with people, but at least I _know_ people. Who are _you,_ candy-pop?” Loki drifts closer, locked on Hari. Behind her, the Winchester’s exchange a glance.

Hari bites her tongue hard enough to draw blood. _She doesn’t know me,_ Hari thinks, wondering if she’s got this all wrong.

“I’m so confused,” she whispers, still looking at her father- mother. “You don’t know who I am.”

Loki looks slightly pitying, then, “Should I, sweetheart?”

“…Loki, right?” Adam clears his throat, gaining her attention briefly. “That’s Hari. She’s kind of weird. Also ours.”

“‘Ours’?” Loki raises an eyebrow, looking to Sam, “Adopting kids without me, Samsquatch?”

“Loki,” Baldur bares his teeth, “Either tell us why you’re here or get out.”

“No winning with you, is there Baldy?” Loki rolls her eyes, dramatically twirling around to announce, “The Apocalypse! We can’t stop it, gang, which is why I’m here. But first, me and my little groupies here need to have a little conversation. Check you later.”


	4. Chapter 4

Loki snaps her fingers and Hari feels the Grace wrap around her, even though she can’t see it. It drags her and the three Winchester’s away, back to Dean and Hari’s room in the hotel. She’s deposited a foot above the bed, high enough that when she falls down, she bounces – in the fun way.

Letting out a surprised giggle, Hari scrambles to sit up, only to find Loki cross-legged in front of her.

“Who are you?” Loki asks, voice cutting and sharp. Hari’s grin falls. “I know you’re a nephil, so don’t try to lie to me about that.”

“I’m not _just_ a nephil,” Hari replies.

“Oh? Human too? Who cares?” Loki brushes her off, but Hari shakes her head, reaching out to put her hands on Loki’s shoulders.

“ _Look_ at me,” she pleads, desperate. “I came so far. Please. _Look._ Ignore my nephilic side, I’m more than that.”

Loki brushes her off, though. “Uh, how about _no?_ You’re a nephil, you could have any agenda trying to get under my skin. Why would a pagan god interest you, anyway? I’m no more than any of them back there.”

Hari shakes her head again, wringing her hands. “You’re not, I _know_ you’re not. You’re like _me._ I’m a nephil and a pagan _and_ a human.”

Loki raises an eyebrow, curious. “How am I supposed to believe that? You’re trying _real_ hard, kid, but I can tell you’re hiding your Grace and Trueform. Human souls don’t look like yours.”

“ _Exactly,_ ” Hari tries to say, but Loki doesn’t believe her, instead dismissing her and talking to the Winchester’s. Hari watches after her, waiting, foreboding growing in her stomach until it’s heavy as a rock.

Sam glances at her, every now and again, worried. Loki goes on and on, arguing about whose game it is the Winchester’s are playing, about Lucifer and Michael, about Kali and blood; and Hari feels like she’s going to cry. Sam can obviously see how that translates on her human face, because he comes over, sitting down beside her, rubbing her back.

Loki sees her and makes a panicked face, eyes blowing wide.

“Don’t cry!” she exclaims, clearly wary. Her hand waves, pagan power fizzling as a lollipop appears in her hand. Loki holds it out like a peace-offering. “C’mon baby angel, don’t get upset. Things get nasty when nephilim get upset. It’s just a little spell, then the Winchester’s can ride off into the sunset with you in the backseat.”

 _I want **you** , _Hari wants to say, turning away to curl into Sam’s side. He lets her latch on, running a hand over her head. Hari’s lost her hat at some point and she doesn’t know when. All she knows it that it’s not in the hotel.

“Gabriel, enough,” he says, “Do you even know who she is? Because she knows _you_.”

“Me?” Loki frowns – _Gabriel_ frowns. There are loud noises emitting from Hari’s mouth and she can’t scrub at her eyes, because her cheeks are too wet. There are too many tears. “How does she know me?”

“Uh, maybe ‘cause she claims you’re her dad?” Dean crosses his arms over his chest, annoyed on her behalf. “Not her _mom_ , by the way, that was news to her – her _dad_.”

“Dad?” Gabriel shakes her head, “Dean-o, I’ve never set foot on this Earth in a male vessel before.”

“She’s not from _this_ Earth,” Adam says wryly, unbothered by her crying. Sam’s arm loops around her shoulders tighter. “Maybe in another universe, you were never a girl.”

“ _Oh…_ I see, right,” Gabriel says, drawing her words out. She comes over to the bed again, crouching in front of Hari, pointing the lollipop at her. “Kiddo, listen up. Your dad is back in your home universe. If you want to find him, you need to go back. It’s not safe for you here.”

“But-” Hari hiccups.

“No buts,” Gabriel interrupts her calmly, shaking the lollipop and flicking her ponytail. “This isn’t your place to be, candy-pop. How did you get here in the first place? Portal? Casually stepping between universes?”

“A Veil,” Hari replies miserably. “I’ve already tried going home. It didn’t work. There’s no Veil here for me to step through.”

“Why did you try going home?” Dean asks her, taken-aback, pointing at Gabriel. “I thought you were trying to find fruit-loops, here?”

“I- I _was_ , but then- then-” Hari sniffles and Gabriel offers her a tissue instead of a sweet. She wipes her face, then blows her nose. Upset still overwhelms her and Hari knows that it won’t take much to set her off again. In the other plane, her tail comes out of hiding, curling around her leg and her wings shake where they sit in shadow, wanting to keep her from being seen.

“Take it easy,” Sam says soothingly, rubbing her chest. Hari tries sitting nearer him, nearer the warmth of his chest, so very aware of Gabriel’s eyes on her – how he sees her tail and side-eyes the heads on her shoulder that peek upwards, until she bats them down like some twisted whack-a-mole.

Hari takes a breath.

“No-one is like me in my world,” she whispers in a hush. “There’s no angels or demons. No other planes of existence that you can move between – I only realised out what I _really_ looked like because of a magic mirror. My parents died.”

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. “Okay, so I’m _dead_ in your world. How did you get from _dead_ to _in another universe?_ ”

“Because I felt it!” Hari half-shouts, crying again. Sam immediately begins to shush her gently, wiping at her face with his large, calloused hand. “I didn’t want to stay in that world where no-one’s like me and I _knew_ there were other angels through the Veil. I could hear Angel Radio and I knew what it was, I knew that it was _right_ that I could hear it.”

Gabriel’s eyes drape over her lazily. “You’ve got to have a few centuries on you. You can’t be as naïve as to think you can come to another universe and claim me as your parent.”

Hari feels hollowed out by Gabriel’s words. She shakes her head over and over, hands gripping Sam’s shirt. She shakes her head.

_This isn’t what it’s supposed to be like, no, not like this. I want my dad, please – **please**._

“Rude,” Adam mutters.

“It’s true,” Gabriel shrugs. “The kind of control she’s got over her powers is strong. She’s the equivalent of an angel teenager.”

Sam’s brow furrows. “She said she was sixteen, before. She stopped aging when she was eight.”

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. “Sixteen hundred, maybe. She probably stopped aging because she didn’t want to, anymore. She’s a nephil, her powers are endless.”

“I’m not sixteen hundred!” Hari manages to garble through Sam’s shirt. “I’m just sixteen, _just_ sixteen. I’m Hari Marlene Potter and I’m _sixteen._ ”

“…wait, _what?_ ” say all four adults in the room.

Sam pulls Hari away from his chest, looking right at her face. His eyes are wide and his eyes do that familiar flicker to her forehead, hand reaching up to push her parting out of the way to see the silver, branching, lightning scar that takes up half her forehead, easily visible against her dark skin.

“Hari Potter,” he says, dumbfounded. “You’re a girl.”

“…yeah?” Hari replies, confused and sniffly. She shudders through a particularly large breath, trying to calm herself down. She feels empty of emotions, like there’s a gaping hole in her chest. “Yeah,” she says.

“Hari,” Gabriel addresses her, Hari’s name sounding strange coming out of his mouth, “by any chance did you go to a school for magic? Called Hogwarts?”

“…yes,” Hari says, staring at her mother. Her heartbeat triples. “You know it? You know _me?_ ”

“Not the way you’re thinking, candy-pop,” Gabriel stares at her in bemusement, now, smiling slightly. “This is the thing with other universes. They can be _deathly_ interesting. Not _half_ as _philosophical._ ”

Sam groans, “Gabe, really?”

“Samsquatch, my own daughter just handed me a whole series of puns to use,” Gabriel says, Hari staring at her as she chuckles, eyes following Gabriel’s hand as it reaches out to her, finger bopping her nose. “You’re a marvel, aren’t you, Hari? The Girl-Who-Lived, in the flesh. That must really sting, that name. Bit on the nose for an immortal nephil.”

“How?” Hari whispers, “How do you know that?”

“Books, sweetheart,” Gabriel says, snapping her fingers. On Hari’s lap appears a heavy set of books, set snugly in a cardboard case. Hari squints, frowning at the titles on the spines. “This is JK Rowling’s _Harry Potter_ series. A boy-wizard with magic, the Boy-Who-Lived.”

Hari reaches, pulling out the second chronicle from the series from where it’s wedged between two reddish spines. The cover is edged with green and blue, a painting of two boys in a flying car staring up at her.

“Ron,” Hari says, staring at the title. _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets._ “Why am I white on the cover? And why is my name wrong? Why am I a _boy?_ I’m a girl, not a boy.”

“Poetic license,” Gabriel says, moving to sit on Hari’s other side, elbow brushing Sam’s. “Also, JK is a white lady. She didn’t have enough imagination to think up the genius that would be _Indian Harry Potter._ However, spoiler-alert – her fans will. Tumblr in the future is interesting.”

“Is this my life?” Hari asks, shocked. _I’m a book character, here._ She feels numb, wondering if these books hold her dreams and wishes – if people know every inch of her, from top to bottom. It feels invasive, like she’s suddenly been manhandles by grubby, pinching fingers. It’s worse than that first day in Diagon Alley, when she was in the Leaky Cauldron and everyone wanted to touch her, to have a souvenir of _the Girl-Who-Lived._

“Only you can tell us that, but I doubt it,” Gabriel says flippantly. “Like, I know for a fact that Harry James Potter is not a supernatural being and you are, so like… _immediate_ difference, kiddo. There might be some similarities, some edgily familiar conversations and situations…but ultimately, no. We definitely have some misconceptions about your life already.”

“Like what?”

“Like how you lived in a cupboard for ten years?” Sam asks, wincing. Hari blanches.

“That’s _in here?_ ” Hari asks, cringing. Immediately, the lights in the room start to flicker, the world around them creaking. Hari looks to her mother, who looks perfectly calm, even as the power around the room – _her mother’s Grace_ – tells them _exactly_ how murderous she feels.

“Baby-girl, I have a feeling I need to apologise,” Gabriel says crisply, unwrapping the lollipop and sucking on it. Slowly, the room goes back to normal. Hari stares at her. “You really are sixteen, aren’t you? The Veil – that’s the Veil of Death, from the Department of Mysteries, right?”

“Yes,” Hari confirms, nodding. Gabriel scrutinises her for a few moments before disappearing. Hari startles, wondering if Gabriel flew – if Gabriel can teach _her_ how to fly so silently.

* * *

(“You aren’t keeping her here, Kali,” Gabriel says after calling a recess on the gods’ little meeting and borrowing Kali, who thoughtfully invited her to her room in the hotel. Gabriel has already flaunted her powers, getting rid of Mercury and Ganesh’s little spying minions and devices. “You aren’t,” Gabriel repeats, for posterity.

“Claiming her already, are we? Odin won’t be happy,” Kali leans back against the dresser, expression becoming for guarded as she realises what kind of mood ‘Loki’ is in. “She’s special.”

“Yes, she is,” Gabriel confirms, stepping forwards until she’s almost touching her, hands resting on the dresser. “Kali. We’ve known each other a long time and you called me here in the first place, knowing what I’ve done for my children in the past. Don’t force me to kill you to protect my daughter.”

“You know, if I didn’t know better – couldn’t smell the human on her – I’d wonder if you’d kept something from me, during our time together,” Kali says, hand drifting up to adjust Gabriel’s collar. “Pagan. Angelic. Human. You’re not what you seem, old friend. It’s even more obvious when you look at her, _knowing_ what to look for.”

Underneath her grasp, Gabriel tenses, but Kali shakes her head. “We are more than friends, Loki. As an act of good faith, I’ll release her from the spell – but not the Winchester’s.” Her hand drops, drifting behind her, a smile growing as her hand brushes Gabriel’s, where it reaches for the vials of blood. “Here,” she says, finding Hari’s with ease, pressing it into Gabriel’s hand. “Stay. She won’t be harmed, I swear it.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Gabriel asks and it’s not fair, because she _cares_ and Kali can hear it as her voice cracks. “Kali…that’s my baby girl. My youngest.”

“You’d never met her before today, we both know that,” Kali replies, shaking her head. “You love too easily, _Gabriel._ ”

“Still love me?” Gabriel asks, grinning slightly, knowing that _she_ still loves _Kali._

“…no,” Kali says, lying.

They kiss, lips pressing against lips and Gabriel knows she’s been tricked a few moment later, as Kali rips into the bare skin of her arm, taking her blood and binding her with little more than a blink. Pagan magic is old magic – and Kali is one of the oldest around.

“You have your daughter,” Kali says, “but I have _you_ , angel.”)

* * *

The gods come for them, soon after Gabriel leaves. Dean, Sam and Adam can’t fight them for too long – but Hari can fly, Hari can get away. What tethered her here is no more. There’s a stake that goes through the heart of Zao Shen, who deserves it if the bloody mouth is anything. Odin fights them, too, still chewing and Hari…

Hari can’t say what moves her. Maybe it’s the legends – that Odin imprisoned and bound her mother and siblings that might not even exist – or maybe it’s the feasting – he wipes his face with a bloody hand, skin stuck under his nails – but Hari doesn’t want him around anymore.

The stake in Zao Shen shoots across the room and embeds itself in his heart. Baron Samedi is the only one left, when Odin falls. He looks at her, eyes shifting, then he rushes out of the room.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Adam pants, collapsing in a chair. His nose is broken, bleeding. Sam has also taken a few hits.

“Freezer,” Dean says, “We’ve got to get those people before they get turned into soup.”

Unfortunately, they all know that for some, it’s already too late – see: eyeball soup. The four of them return to the kitchen, stake in hand, but there are gods in the kitchen, bonding over the corpse of a woman.

“You should join us,” Iris says to Hari, teeth bloody red as she smiles. “The angel-vessels are useless humans.”

“But they’re _mine_ ,” Hari replies. “Mine and my mum’s.”

“You’re right about that,” Gabriel says from behind them. They turn to find Gabriel standing there with Kali, serious and quiet. She’s lost her lustre and the light inside her is angry – her Grace reaching out to Hari’s without care for who sees. She wears her jacket properly now and it’s far too big, the sleeves rolled up and still falling around her wrists.

 _What happened?_ Hari wants to ask, as Kali tells the other pagans off for snacking before the feast. Gabriel wraps her arm around Hari’s shoulders tightly, not saying a word. The Winchester’s have to be manhandled.

“How _did_ you get away from Michael, anyway?” Gabriel asks the men, as they walk to the ballroom, a gruesome procession of captives and bloodied, hungry pagans. “Heard a rumour that he was nearly summoned to Earth.”

“The angels had me,” Adam explains, “but Sam and Dean rescued me. Zachariah was using me as bait. Castiel managed to banish him and his cronies, though. He made the mistake of capturing them.”

“Cas is still missing,” Dean says, quiet.

The Winchester’s are placed at the table, this time, instead of put on display. Gabriel tugs Hari to sit on her lap and it’s strange, because Gabriel’s vessel is tiny, compared to the hulking Sam or even the medium builds of Sirius and Remus. Gabriel’s hands run through her hair, removing it from it’s messy braid. It seems much a comfort to Hari as it is to Gabriel.

Hari takes what she can get, though, wondering what inspired Gabriel to change her mind.

“Lucifer will kill you,” is what Gabriel says, once the gods are gathered and sat down. “He’ll murder you indiscriminately. You can’t beat him. I’ve skipped ahead, seen how this story ends-”

“Your story,” Kali interrupts and Hari is scared of her, then. Suddenly, to Hari, she is not just a woman with the power of a god – she is _Kali,_ with many arms and fire burning around her. _Destroyer,_ Hari knows, listening to her talk of the billion gods and the arrogance of Westerners.

Gabriel lays a hand on Hari’s back, saying “Go sit with Sammy, babe.”

“Mum-”

“Go sit with Sammy, Hari,” Gabriel orders, glaring her down. Hari clutches at her jacket and hugs her, arms wrapping around her neck. Gabriel doesn’t hug her back, but her Grace reaches out and it’s like the Grace-equivalent of Gabriel mussing her hair. “Get off me, kid.”

Hari sits with Sam, summoning a chair with her Grace from the other side of the room. Adam pats her head and she makes a face at him.

“The Trickster has tricked us,” Kali explains to the gods, after Baldur questions her use of the word _Westerners_ , after Ganesh tries to call her out for claiming Loki is not who she seems. “They are not who they seem.”

“No, I’m not,” Gabriel agrees, before giving a winning smile. “Reintroductions! Iris, Ganesh, Samedi, Baldur, Mercury, Hathor, Morozko and Kali…hello, my name is Gabriel.”

“Gabriel, as in, the _archangel_ ,” Kali adds and her distaste is obvious.

“Yep, but you knew that already, honey,” Gabriel leans forwards, hand trailing up Kali’s bare arm. She grins. “What do you want with me?”

“She’s a spy,” Kali claims, staring right at her as she speaks to her fellow gods. “Don’t believe a word she says.”

“You’re really doing this,” Gabriel shakes her head, “You’re screwing this up, Kali. Lucifer is _my_ brother.”

“As you were my sister,” Baldur says and Hari looks at him sharply. _What?_ “But apparently, that is not true.”

Gabriel purses her lips, “Bro, you think I’d be here if I didn’t care about you? You, Kali, hell – even Thor, wherever he’s been trapped the past few centuries. I suppose he’ll be there forever, now Odin’s dead. Family doesn’t end in Grace. I’m a runaway – I haven’t been in Heaven since before Lucifer and Michael’s last tussle.”

“You left before Lucifer got put in the cage?” Adam questions, getting a side-eye from Gabriel before she nods. “That’s a long time.”

“Try millennia, kid,” Gabriel snarks, before Kali reaches forwards into her coat. “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” she advises Kali as she takes out a silvery blade, one that coats the air with the taste of Grace. Hari licks her lips, eyeing it.

Something in her shakes. Something in her knows.

_That can’t hurt me._

“This blade can kill Lucifer,” Kali pronounces, stepping away from Gabriel and twirling it in her hand. “It can kill any angel that lives.”

“What about her?” Samedi asks, pointing at Hari.

“No,” Gabriel says simply. Hari nods, after a second. “She’s one of the nephilim. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anything that can kill her in the known multiverse.”

“We’ll see,” Kali says.

* * *

Her ribs flare in pain and she can barely prevent her Grace from healing the damage, from lashing out as the Enochian sigils latch upon the core of her being. The scar tissue from where the horcrux once resided is still there – Gabriel said it was enough.

On her forehead, the lightning reopens, glistening and wet.

“How are you feeling?” Gabriel stares at her, hand still resting on her chest, ready to heal her ribs at any moment and let her Grace dissolve the curse imprinted on her scar, that is now tethered to her human bones.

Hari feels dizzy. “Light-headed,” she breathes. “Mum?”

Gabriel flinches. “Yeah?”

“Why are you letting me stay?” she asks, “Was it because you found out I’m a Potter?”

“You’re young, snickerdoodle,” Gabriel tells her, “ _very_ young. A fledgling.”

_Fledgling._

The word hits her like a hammer to the chest and Hari doesn’t feel light-headed anymore. Fawkes called her that. Hedwig had called her _hatchling_ – but Fawkes, Fawkes who taught her how to fly, how to heal souls with the magic he provided, Fawkes had called her _fledgling_ , too.

“You’re _really_ sixteen,” Gabriel says, like she still doesn’t quite believe it. “You stopped maturing at eight and you won’t _really_ be a proper teenager until you’re taken under the wings of another. You’re one of the nephilim – rules are weird and change all the time. I’m going to take you as my own, as my fledgling, as angels do.”

“Like adoption?” Hari asks, the word strange to her. _Adoption._ As if Gabriel isn’t her mother, but…but is _willing to be._

“Your Gabriel is dead, Hari,” Gabriel says to her, taking her chin and wiggling it. She doesn’t seem to know what she wants to do. Her hand drops. “In some ways, it was good you came here. Got my head on straight. There are things I need to talk about with Sam. You knocked me on my ass, kiddo and- and I should do right by you. You might be from another universe, but you’re still a child of Gabriel – any and _all_ Gabriel’s.”

Hari swallows, listening to her finish.

“And that includes me, too.” Gabriel ruffles her hair, before turning to Adam, who had been allowed to exit the ballroom with Gabriel and Hari. “So, here’s the big bad plan to escape. Hari can fly out of here if she wants, but she has nowhere to go afterwards. I’d rather see her safe before kidnapping Kali.”

“Woah, what? Kidnapping Kali?” Adam’s eyebrows rise high up his forehead, blue eyes going wide. “Are you insane?”

“Nope, just imaginative. Kali is the one trapping us here. So long as we’re with her, we’re good,” Gabriel explains, before steering Hari over to Adam. “You’ve been to Bobby Singer’s, right?”

“…yeah, why?” Adam questions, wary. Gabriel looks down at Hari.

“Kiddo, you’re going to have a look through Adam’s noggin. Bobby Singer is your future granddad and while he might aim a gun in your direction at first and make you do some weird shit, he’ll accept you and keep you safe. You need a direction to fly in – you _can_ fly, right?” Gabriel blinks, making a face as if she just realised she might need to teach Hari how to fly.

“A phoenix taught me, it’s okay,” Hari assures her mother, “and I know how to look through a person’s head, but not with Grace.”

“Then how?” Gabriel asks, eyes glinting. She and Adam watch as Hari summons her wand, twirling it in her fingers. “ _Oooh._ ”

“You’re only sixteen,” Adam frowns, “How do you know about legilimency now?”

“Because I had need of it,” Hari replies, raising an eyebrow. “The books are wrong, whatever they say. Focus on this guy’s house, as clear a picture as you can get.”

“Okay,” Adam hedges, looking into Hari’s eyes. “This is the best as it’s going to get.”

“Okay,” Hari repeats, breathing out slowly. “ _Legilimens!_ ”

Her mind speeds into his and she’s a freight train, going through a dark tunnel. She slams face-first into a memory of hostility, Sam and Dean trying to convince Adam that he should trust them. Behind a desk is a man in a baseball cap, sitting in a wheelchair. Hari ignores the conversation as best as she can, taking in as much of the room as she can.

 _Now to leave,_ Hari thinks, ending the spell before Adam can suck her into another memory unwillingly. The image dissolves like smoke and Adam startles.

“You- you got it?” he asks, shaky. “It was so real, like I was there again…”

“I don’t forget things. My memory is impeccable,” Hari informs him primly, chin rising in an imitation of Hermione. She looks to Gabriel. “What will you do? What’s going to happen to Sam and Dean?”

“The gods want to use them as bait,” Gabriel says. Her lips purse and Hari remembers what she said earlier – that Baldur is her brother. _Another uncle._ “Lucifer is going to end up coming here. Those sigils will hide you from angels and not allow them to track you, but they can still sense your presence if you see them in person. That’s when they’ll call for backup and _you_ need to skedaddle.”

The door to the room opens, admitting the bellboy – Hathor. He looks at Hari and frowns.

“What have you done to her? I feel…” he looks away, wincing. Gabriel smiles grimly.

“I hid her from you all. You want to have a look up-close at her soul, you have to get past my protections. Bade they look upon her inhuman form,” Gabriel bares teeth, “for that is the last time they will. Upon seeing, her supernatural heritage you become _blind_ to, at mine own will and magic.”

Adam murmurs, “When did _you_ turn into Shakespeare?”

Hathor shakes his head, looking back at them. He sees her, but his expression twists.

“Humanity. Curse you, _Gabriel,_ ” Hathor glares at the angel. “I would not use a child for my own ends.”

“I don’t care,” Gabriel says flippantly, pony-tail whipping around. “What do you want?”

“Kali orders your return. The girl may come or go, she has no care,” Hathor grounds out.

“Great,” Gabriel replies, chipper. “We’ll be along in a moment. You can wait outside,” she waves her hands and Hathor goes flying, the door slamming shut. She turns to Hari. “Time to go, mini-me.”

Hari puts a hand to her chest, feeling along the Enochian runes. She understands them, vaguely, but knowing another language doesn’t mean she understands the intricacies of its use, especially when it comes to wards.

“What else do the wards do?” she asks, only to be winked at. Gabriel takes off her jacket, dusting it off before draping it around Hari’s shoulders.

“That’s got my mark on it,” Gabriel says, “It’s my favourite jacket, so don’t lose it. Well – it’s _Sammy’s_ jacket. My boy-toy has nice clothes. Anyway, don’t lose it. I’ll be able to find you, this way.”

“Oh,” Hari says, tentatively putting her arms through the sleeves. They’re still rolled up, but Hari’s fingertips barely brush the edge. “Mum, can I ask you something?”

“If you’re quick,” Gabriel allows.

“Are…” Hari licks her lips, “are you and Sam together?”

Gabriel grins, eyes twinkling. “Why else would I call Bobby Singer your future granddad? Now, get going before Kali gets annoyed – there’s chocolate in the pockets. Bye-bye.”

“Bye,” Hari rolls her eyes, waving to Adam, who similarly waves his hand. Then, she flies away, focusing on that image in Adam’s head. Like a beacon, the image leads her across America to a town she knows is called _Sioux Falls_ , though she has no idea how to pronounce it.

Hari lands in the living room with a rush of wings. On the bed, Bobby Singer is asleep. Hari fidgets in place, the wooden floor under her feet the only reason she doesn’t move, wary of creaking. She remembers Gabriel’s warning about him pointing a gun at her face – she doesn’t particularly want that, thanks.

_But how do I wake him up without freaking him out?_

Hari squirms, shifting her weight enough for one board to squeak ominously. She sees the shift in Bobby Singer’s soul immediately, going from sleep to wakefulness.

“Excuse me!” she blurts out, nervous. Bobby opens his eyes, reaching for a gun and pointing it in her direction, still lying on the bed. “Sorry for waking you up, but I was sent here by my mum,” she says, before adding onto that, exaggerating the truth, “and dad. Step-dad. This is his jacket. Mum’s trying to help them escape right now.”

“Girl, who the hell are you?” Bobby asks her.

Hari’s heart stutters and she thinks of books in a hotel room, of _‘tell them you’re Karen Winchester_ ’ and Sam, who her mum is going to marry.

“Winchester,” Hari lies with all her heart. “My name is Hari Winchester. Hello Granddad.”


	5. Chapter 5

(“Be careful with that, _mon amore_ , that’s a real angel-blade,” Gabriel warns Kali, who purses her lips.

“You’re lucky I’m not using it on _you_ ,” Kali replies. She sits on the arm of her chair, watching Gabriel preen under her attention. “You’re adorable.”

“I know, aren’t I?” Gabriel pouts. “C’mon Kali, my big brother’s a dangerous guy! Sure, you could destroy his meatsuit, but that would only make the explosion of his Grace a _little_ bit more powerful than a bomb. It’s not _safe_ to try fighting him.”

Kali brushes back her hair, glancing over at Sam. “Why choose Lucifer’s Vessel as your consort?”

“Groundhog day,” Gabriel shrugs. “I pretended to be a dude in a time-loop of my own making, doing the same thing the entire time – hitting on him. Changed it up whenever he made a new change, etcetera, etcetera…”

“That’s not a _why,_ Gabriel,” Kali teases, smiling slightly. “Silvertongue.”

“That’s me,” Gabriel sticks her tongue out at the goddess, who leans down, capturing her lips in a kiss. At the table, Sam stares at them, while Dean raises an eyebrow.

“Maybe _you_ should have been the one flirting with her, rather than Dean,” Adam mutters, impressed at Gabriel’s game, just as Dean is. They watch as Kali migrates onto her lap, Ganesh rolling his eyes.

“Loki’s always been a whore,” the elephant-god mutters, only to start choking in much the same way Mercury had, earlier. Only, he doesn’t stop until he falls unconscious, breathing rattling through the room.

“Uh, Gabriel?” Sam starts, the women peeling away from each other so Gabriel can tilt her head back to look at him.

“What is it, babe?”

“Uh…” Sam struggles for words, “I thought we were negotiating for our freedom? Why are you…” he trails off, looking at his lap rather than either of them.

“Calm down, Professor Marston,” Gabriel says, a smirk tugging at her lip at the reference. “We’re not getting free. Kali’s not going to let us go. I’m just trying to make our situation less worse.”

“What? By making out with your ex?” Dean questions, a little more negative than before about the sight in front of him. “There are _people_ in a _fridge._ That are going to be _eaten._ If you don’t mind, hurry up?”

“You’re not joining them, don’t worry,” Kali says amusedly. Dean’s expression turns sickened.

Gabriel sighs. “Calm down. Kali-”

“No,” Dean interrupts, standing. “Listen up, all you primitive screwheads.”

“Dean!” Gabriel barks, eyes flashing, but Dean shakes his head, pointing at her.

“Uh, no, Miss ‘ _my-plan-is-fucking-the-boss-till-she-let’s-us-go_ ’,” Dean gives a banal smile, his point proven correct when Gabriel doesn’t reply. “Right. Now – on any other given day, I’d be doing my damnest to…well, kill you, you filthy, murdering chimps. But, hey: desperate times.”

Dean gives Gabriel another glare before going over to the bar, ignoring Sam and Adam’s _what the fuck_ faces.

“So, even though I’d love _nothing_ better than to slit your throats – you _dicks –_ I’m going to help you. I’m going to help you ice the Devil,” Dean pours himself a drink, briefly closing his eyes and praying to Castiel, _please come help us._ “And then, we can all get back to ganking each other like normal. You want Lucifer? Well, dude’s not in the Yellow Pages. But me and Sam, we can get him here, so you can stick him with Gabriel’s archangel blade.”

Dean pauses, then, realising it might be a good idea to include Adam in his little ‘protect my brother’ spiel.

“Also, just adding, if you kill my baby brother Adam, here, you’re basically handing Michael a spare Vessel to use,” he says, clearing his throat. “Which none of us want. Ever. That’s my brother, no angel’s going to use him as a meatsuit. _Ever_.”

“How are you going to get Lucifer here?” Kali asks, intrigued. Her eyes follow Dean, hands off Gabriel, now. _She’s hooked,_ Dean thinks, realising he might actually need to come clean about how they can attract Lucifer to their location, here – but first.

“First, you let those main courses go,” Dean orders, “then we talk. We can either take on the Devil together, or you lame-ass bitches can eat me…literally.”

“Yeah, then get found by angels,” Adam says, “because they’ll resurrect Dean and follow his soul down from Heaven.”

 _Probably not how it works, but cool idea kid,_ Dean thinks, nodding in agreement as he sips his bourbon. He has to put his drink down when the pagans let them go free the hostages and when he comes back, his glass has been cleaned away.

It’s worth it.

“What about a battle plan, then?” Dean asks, when they get back to business, standing in the middle of the ballroom with Kali and Baldur, the other gods roaming the hallways. “Like, how are you going to jump him? If he sees Gabriel’s angel-blade, you’re toast. No angel is actually going to part with one of those, not willingly. He’ll think you’ve killed his sister.”

“And?” Kali replies coldly.

“And _that_ is how you get murdered,” Dean sighs, rubbing his forehead.

Sam reaches for Gabriel, who is quick to attach herself to his side like a limpet, looking smaller than usual without his jacket around her waist. She barely reaches past his shoulder, even in heeled boots.

“Can you face him?” Sam asks her. “He’s your brother.”

“Oh, I’m fighting him if he tries harming you,” Gabriel says, eyes flashing. “Hari’s other parent is dead – I’m not letting that happen to _our_ munchkin.”

Sam’s eyes go wide.

Gabriel looks away, embarrassed. Dean chokes on air and Adam lets out a burst of laughter.

“You’re pregnant? With a Winchester? Well done,” the younger starts laughing, grinning at Sam’s flabbergasted look.

Baldur looks her up and down, sneering. “I knew it. You’re the same as ever.”

“What, having kids left, right and centre?” Gabriel snarls back, “Yeah. But at least I love my little accidents – Odin barely stands _you_ and you’re his trueborn son!”

“ _Should_ you be facing down Lucifer?” Dean questions, bamboozled. “I mean, if you’re pregnant-”

“He won’t harm me if he thinks I’m cooking up nephilim, short-stack,” Gabriel interrupts. “At this point, other angels will be able to tell if they see me – which is the _only_ reason I’m coming clean, to be clear. Usually, conception of nephilim rings clear through Angel Radio like a gong, but I’m an archangel – I can keep the sound wrapped up better than most other angel-parents, especially lower-class ones, where they usually come from. Visually, though, it gets a bit obvious in my Grace, right about now.”

“A query,” Kali starts, drawing her attention, “Your other children – the Norse ones – do they count as nephilim?”

“I mean, _technically,_ yeah, but in reality they class as a different species entirely,” Gabriel says, “like the cross-religion pagan children.”

Kali grimaces. “Right.”

“It’s rather complicated,” Gabriel admits, arms wrapping around Sam’s torso. She looks up at him. “I don’t want to take those runes off your ribs, but I will if you ask.”

“I love you,” he blurts out, to Gabriel’s faint smile.

“I love you as well, Samsquatch. I’d settle down and everything, for you.”

The lights start to flicker, screams echoing through the corridors. Everyone tenses and the humans back up, Sam dragging Gabriel with him.

“It’s him,” he says, worried, looking at Gabriel in fear.

“Wrong place, _worst_ of times,” she mutters, pushing him behind her and snatching the angel-blade from Kali. “Get behind me. Kali, you had _better_ have those vials on hand to disconnect the spell or dammit, you _smash_ that magic because if you don’t, you aren’t getting out of here alive.”

Then, Lucifer walks right through the doors of the ballroom.

There’s a swagger to his steps, a smile on his face. Sores bleed and demon blood runs through his veins by the gallon. Gabriel can recognise how close his vessel is to combusting, his tainted Grace just as powerful as Michael’s, but his devilishness has corrupted him over millennia and the darkness emanates from him in waves.

“How are you here? Who summoned you?” Baldur demands, stone-faced.

“Baldur, you’re going to get _murdered_ ,” Gabriel snaps, attracting Lucifer’s attention. His happy expression falters, briefly.

“Gabriel. Siding with maggots. How…expected. You always did stand up for the little ones,” Lucifer says, ignoring Baldur in front of him right up until he starts speaking.

“You think you own this planet? What gives you the _right?_ ” he demands, going to attack him and failing completely and utterly. Gabriel forces herself not to look away as her pagan brother is killed, Lucifer’s hand thrown through his chest. At her side, Kali summons her fire – the _agni_ , the fire she absorbed from Agni, Fire God, when she murdered him in a fit of anger and took his strength – but Gabriel is increasingly aware of her vulnerability.

No matter how old she is, how powerful she might be…on Earth, Lucifer is _so_ much more powerful than he is in Heaven or Hell.

But the same can be said for Gabriel.

“Put your pride away, Kali!” Gabriel hisses at her, drawing her to stand with the Winchester’s at her back. Kali, vain as ever and _belligerent,_ hisses swears and curses at Gabriel as angelic power keeps her from stepping forth.

“Why do you protect them, Gabriel? They are lesser – maggots and cockroaches.” Lucifer side-eyes her, glancing at her Trueform while his demonically-hopped up body can handle it, only glimpsing long enough to see past her slowly unravelling disguise. “They can do nothing for you or your children.”

“Watch it, Lucy,” Gabriel snaps. “You’re treading a thin line.”

“There _is_ no line,” Lucifer crosses his arms, assessing her. He isn’t worried in the least. “I know your tricks, sister. They were my tricks, once.”

Then he moves, twisting around to grasp the double behind him, sinking the archangel blade into her chest. At the same time, Gabriel flies away with Kali and the Winchester’s. Her double fades away in a ripple of blue in Lucifer’s arms. Her blade, imbued with too much Grace for it to handle, melts in his grasp.

Gabriel shakes her head as they arrive in Bobby’s house in Sioux Falls.

“Trick inside a trick,” she assures Sam as she collapses into his arms.)

* * *

Her forehead creases. Ink stains her hand where the pen has run across her skin. In front of her is a table that she’s slowly been filling out at Bobby’s behest, using his large library to compile a spreadsheet of monsters, their characteristics and method of destruction.

Dean comes to sit down beside her, sitting heavily in his chair. “Kid.”

“Uncle Dean,” Hari greets, distracted. The book on her lap is contradicting the book on the table by her spreadsheet. “These books are different. One says a zombie has to be burned, but this one says they have to be nailed to their coffin.”

“Depends on the type of zombie,” Dean replies, giving her a short rundown. Hari listens carefully, detailing notes on her spreadsheet, writing smaller when space begins to run out. It’s strange, writing in pen – she’s so used to writing with a quill and ink from her Hogwarts days – but at the same time, liberating. She’s becoming more and more muggle. It’s been ages since she used her powers or even her magic except for _scourgifying_ things.

“Uncle Dean,” Hari starts, when she sees him staring off into the distance again. “What’s bothering you?”

Dean glances at her, “Lots of things. Nothing for you to worry about…” he frowns, though. “Wait, you’re a nephil, so…so can you find him? Cas?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Hari admits. “You’ve mentioned him before, but, I mean, is he an angel? Human?”

“Angel,” Dean replies, “and on our side, which means a lot. Gabriel being on our side now is new, too, no matter how long she and Sam have been fuck-” he startles, coughing, “I mean, together. No matter how long they’ve been together.”

“I’m sixteen,” Hari says, but she still wrinkles her nose at the thought of her mother _doing stuff._ “I don’t really want to think about them having sex, thanks.”

Dean blusters, before shaking his head and looking around the kitchen. “It’s weird seeing the place this clean,” he says. “Karen, Bobby’s wife – she came back from the dead, briefly – and she…she cleaned. Cooked. It wasn’t cluttered, either.”

“I leave the clutter,” Hari replies, “It’s not mine. But I refuse to eat and make food on dirty counters. I wasn’t raised to abide mess.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. He shifts in his chair and she can see the open collar of his button-down, a black tattoo half-visible in the kitchen light. “And clutter isn’t mess?”

“The clutter isn’t mine,” Hari returns, before shutting the book on her lap and on the table, piling them up on top of each other. “What’s your tattoo?”

“This?” Dean tugs at his shirt, showing her what looks like a sun, but is a pentagram, too. “Anti-possession tat. Stops the demons getting inside you. Some people carry charms, but me and Sam, we got these done. If you were older, I’d insist you get one, too, especially with how special you are. From what Gabriel let slip, you’re more attached to your vessel than other angels.”

“Yeah,” Hari’s brow furrows, thinking of angels taking vessels and chaining the souls inside their Grace. “How does possession work?”

“You get beat down,” Dean says, “trapped without permission. Angels are the same, but they have to get a _yes_ , first. Demons torture you – they aren’t good or nice. Black eyes, flinching at the word _Christo_ and burning on contact with holy water, that’s the signs.”

Hari bites her tongue, before holding out her pen and her wrist, “Draw it,” she orders, not wanting that to happen to her. She doesn’t know if it can ever happen, but she doesn’t want to take that chance.”

Dean takes the pen after a few moments, angling her wrist on the table. Quietly, they have a drawing session and when he’s done, Hari is looking at a carefully-coloured pentagram in a circle that looks like a sun.

“That should do it,” Dean says, voice rumbling deep in his chest. “You really are something, kiddo.”

“I can try find Cas, if you want,” Hari whispers, looking into his eyes. “I need a picture of him. I’m good at flying – I can try.”

“I don’t exactly have a picture of him on hand- wait,” Dean pauses, getting up and going to rifle through drawers, muttering to himself before shaking his head. “Just a minute,” he says, disappearing out of the back door. Hari sits at the kitchen table for a while in the dark, watching the door for Dean coming back.

He eventually returns, puffing like he ran, holding out a black wallet that he flips open to show an FBI badge. The picture is of a confused-looking man who frowns slightly at the camera, hair brown and eyes a pretty blue colour.

“This is Castiel, Angel of Thursday,” Dean says, leaning over nearly to her level as he shows her the ID. “You think you can find him?”

“I’ll see,” Hari says, flying up and away, his face pictured firmly in her mind. Her wings take her north, then east, but there’s no tug – not like there was to Bobby’s home in Sioux Falls, not like then. Already feeling guilty, she touches back down in the kitchen, where Dean is staring at the chair she vacated. When she arrives back, he almost looks confused.

“That was…quick. Usually Cas takes longer, searching.”

“Uh, I…” Hari licks her lips, “I thought I would feel the pull. I didn’t. I’m not really sure how to find _people._ I never found Jesse, when I looked, but I thought that was because he didn’t want to be found…”

“Both, probably,” Dean says, looking crestfallen. _He looks like Sirius after Remus died._

“Do you love him?” Hari blurts out her question, wincing at her forwardness. Dean, likewise, looks startled at her unexpected question. “Sorry.”

“No- no, it’s okay,” Dean replies, pausing. “He and I have unfinished business. We care for each other. We- we kissed, once, against a wall…then he beat me up – I completely deserved it,” Dean adds quickly at Hari’s alarmed look. “Then we went looking for Adam and he used an angel-banishing sigil he’d carved into his own chest. He banished himself while he was at it.”

“Oh,” Hari says, mouth forming the shape of an _O._ Did Castiel know it would do that, she wonders – or had he expected to be ejected from his Vessel, instead, leaving it safe in the hands of his loved ones. It’s the only kind of thing she can think of, unless the sigil didn’t know where to send him, seeing as he was the epicentre – that would have moved with him, wherever it sent him.

 _I need to learn more Enochian spells,_ Hari thinks, determined to ask her mother in the morning. _I need to know – I want to know._ It itches at something inside her that Hermione installed early on in their Hogwarts tenure together, that wants to inhale knowledge and understand the intricacies of the universe. Especially seeing as there’s Enochian wards up around Bobby’s property, ones that make no sense to Hari because she has no idea how the formations work, let alone when they’re powered with Grace, made only more confusing by how she reads each rune individually.

Sighing, Hari flies across to Bobby’s bookshelf, too bored to walk. She takes out a book from the shelf, opening it to a random page, only for a magazine to slide out onto the floor. Hari picks it up, not seeing the cover until she’s already standing up straight. She shrieks when she realises what it is, throwing it in Dean’s direction.

“Don’t hide porn in the bookcase!” Hari screeches at him, the man blanching as he quickly picks the magazine up and stuffs it in the bin.

“What porn?” Gabriel flies downstairs, wearing only one of Sam’s large t-shirts and underwear. She blinks, looking between them. “Sorry, I heard the word ‘porn’ and got curious.”

“It was in my book!” Hari exclaims.

Gabriel pouts, looking at Dean. “Bro, there’s a kid in the house. You couldn’t have hid your mags somewhere else instead? Like under your brother’s bed?”

“Nope! No, not doing this,” Dean puts his hands up, leaving the room quickly. Gabriel rolls her eyes, obviously disappointed and Hari clutches her book, going to the table again, opening it up on a random page.

“What are you doing, then, Miss Nosy?” Gabriel saunters over, hands linking in a necklace around Hari’s throat, leaning down to rest her chin on her head. “Nice spreadsheet. You working hard?”

“Yeah,” Hari wriggles, dislodging Gabriel from her perch. Gabriel sighs, instead sitting down beside her, picking up a book and flicking through it. “Shouldn’t you be with Sam?”

“Probably, but he’s tuckered out,” Gabriel reads as she speaks, but over the pages she glances at Hari. Often. “What do you think of him, Mars bar?”

“Sam? He’s…nice,” Hari twirls her pen in hand, pretending it’s her wand for a moment before she drops it – the pen is far shorter than her wand, after all. As she picks it up, she elaborates. “He gives good hugs and he pays attention. He likes you.”

“He loves me,” Gabriel says, quiet, fully staring at her, now. Hari doesn’t see, still half-concentrating on Bobby’s homework. “I’ll have you forever, if I’m lucky, but not him. Him, I have for a short amount of time – _very_ short, if Lucy has his way. I’m going to have him as my own for as long as possible.”

“Good,” Hari murmurs, scribbling a note about different classes of angels on a separate sheet of paper, writing _seraph_ in a spiky font. “I’m happy that you’re happy, mum.”

“Hari,” Gabriel says her name, drawing her attention properly. Hari pauses, looking to her. Gabriel’s hair is mussed, hanging around her shoulders and scraggly. In the kitchen light, she can see faint blonde highlights that she hadn’t before, when Gabriel’s hair was up. “I’m trying to be delicate about it, but we both must need the same blunt hammer to the head. You’re mine, forever, but I want to treasure him while I have him. I can’t pay attention to you every minute of the day – I haven’t been a parent in centuries, so don’t blame me if I forget how, either.”

Gabriel lets her words sink in. Hari eventually nods, timid and shy. Gabriel sighs, reaching over and basically dragging the girl into her lap, smushing her against her chest.

“I’m going to be a shit mom to you,” Gabriel mutters, “I’ve forgotten how to interact with children and I’ll probably leave you with the humans when I get claustrophobic – millennia of running away doesn’t disappear in a week.”

Hari wiggles in her grip, trying to sit properly and get her arms out to hug her. “I don’t care. I’ve had worse.”

“I know,” Gabriel mutters angrily. “Which is why I want to do better by you. I just can’t promise that I’ll always be there. I can’t promise you safety and security. I can’t promise to choose you over Creation.”

“It’s okay, really,” Hari manages to manoeuvre herself finally, looking at her mum closely. “I don’t know what mums are supposed to do, anyway. I think you’re supposed to make sure I’m fed, that I have somewhere to sleep at night and that I’m not emotionally or educationally neglected.”

“…that’s a short list,” Gabriel replies, looking at her in thought. “Huh. Well, Bobby’s feeding you right now. Thing One and Thing Two – and Thing Three, as well, I suppose – will do the same, if you go on the road with them. You’ve got a bed here and the backseat of the Impala is pretty comfortable, with sheets.”

“And I don’t sleep much, anyway,” Hari adds, smiling slightly.

“Too right you shouldn’t,” Gabriel shakes her head, “That’ll fade eventually. Probably. Guard that privilege as long as you can, sweetie. Emotionally…that will be the hardest. Education is different – Bobby’s got you started on the monster menagerie, which I’ll add to over time. You have your own magic that you need to upkeep…Grace, angel-powers, that stuff I’ll teach you. That’s my responsibility.”

“A phoenix taught me how to fly,” Hari informs her.

“So you said,” Gabriel remembers, from the last time she mentioned it. “Human subjects? How are you with maths?”

“Good enough,” Hari says hesitantly, wary, “I went to muggle school until I was eleven, then I just had whatever Hermione’s parents gave her to do. I know teenager maths and geography. Languages are easy because I know them all. I had a class called Ancient Runes where I learnt how to use Elder Futhark, Sanskrit, Ancient Greek, Ancient Hebrew, Tamil and Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs with magic.”

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. “You learnt how to magically manipulate six different languages in the space of how many years?”

“Three, but I have perfect recall because of being a nephil,” Hari tells her, “Memorisation is easy. Being creative is harder. I don’t really have that good of an imagination.”

“Imagination takes practice,” her mother soothes, “just like any other skill. Don’t put yourself down.

“Thanks, but really, I don’t think very creatively,” Hari shrugs, loosening her hug. “I prefer thinking in straight lines. Fred and George always came up with the prank ideas for me to pull off.”

“Oh! Pranking! _Definitely_ a skill we need to add to the education-bucket,” Gabriel exclaims excitedly, “I can’t _wait_ to introduce my Sinners Scale of Punishment. It makes justice _oh_ so sweet when you have other things to compare it to. I’m going to corrupt you, baby and Sam and Dean can just sit back and watch me.”

Hari grins at her mum and Gabriel grins back.

* * *

(The new wards are annoying. He has to drift around, going back and forth between hideouts and Sioux Falls, waiting for the Winchester’s to step outside. When they do, there’s a new one – Michael’s Vessel, if the rumours are true.

Crowley appears in the backseat right next to him and has to play a nice little game of _teleport-so-you-aren’t-murdered_ , until the Winchester’s finally start listening to his whines and wallows. Pestilence will be theirs, he promises. It makes it easier with how their pet-angel is missing, so he has more room to wiggle and prostrate himself, even though their house is now off-limits to him.

Though, playing Dean and Sam against each other? Oh, it makes Crowley ache for Hell.

Approaching Bobby Singer about Death is more difficult. The wards make him itch and they aren’t just the normal type, no they definitely are _not._ There are angel wards, for sure – but there’s more. For some reason it reminds him of his mother, which could mean anything. Crowley’s pretty sure he would have heard if the Winchester’s had teamed up with a witch.

…except, his coin _had_ been removed. Maybe it isn’t so far-fetched, after all.

Crowley needs to speak to Singer, though. He asks the town sheriff to get a message to him, on pain of death if she doesn’t. Mills pulls through, she really does. Crowley stands on the edge of Singer Auto Self-Service Salvage Yard with his hands in his pockets, idly pleased by the crossroads-like shape of the meeting point.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t just shoot you,” Bobby cocks his gun, looking pissed as all hell in his little wheelchair. “Jody was freaked.”

“That’s her prerogative,” Crowley replies, smiling. “Name’s Crowley. Maybe’s you’ve, uh?”

“ _You’re_ Crowley?”

“In the flesh of a…moderately successful literary agent out of New York,” Crowley replies, brushing the lint off his jacket. “I’m here to help. The boys are onto ring number three, but we still need number four. That’s where I come in.”

“Meaning?” Bobby questions, cocking his gun. “You know where Death is?”

Crowley snorts, “No. Haven’t the foggiest.”

Queue: the gunshot.

“I liked this suit!” Crowley growls as it rushes through his nice little pocket-square. He takes it out and grumbles. “But there _is_ a little spell I know…”

“That so?” Bobby cocks his gun, only for a kid to come out from behind the body of a truck. Crowley sees her bright, inhuman soul, blinks, then snarls as he feels a spell take hold. He looks away, feeling it knit across him with no way to be stopped. When Crowley looks back, the girl is still there, looking a little abashed.

“Sorry,” she says, chagrin. To Crowley’s sight, now, she’s little more than your average human – her soul destined straight for Hell, barred from Heaven for eternity. “My mum’s a bit over-protective.”

“Who the hell are you?” Crowley demands, only for Bobby to whack the girl’s arm.

“Get back inside. Not safe.”

“I want to know what spell he’s on about,” the girl argues. “What if we could do it instead?”

“I _very_ much doubt you could cast it, girlie,” Crowley says, eyes narrowing. “What kind of creature _are_ you? You’re going to Hell when you die, that I know for sure.”

Both of them startle at that. “She’s what now?” Bobby yelps, “She’s just a kid!”

“She’s barred from Heaven, that’s what she is,” Crowley replies, reworking the deal in his head. “I could change that.”

The location of Death for the temporary use of Robert Singer’s soul and a ban on the soul of Hari Winchester ever entering Hell, with a few little extra clauses on Bobby’s side made for Team Free Will’s benefit – Crowley thinks that’s a job well done.

Now, to find out _who the hell Hari Winchester is._ )


End file.
